KING  ALCOHOL 
DETHRONED 


f  ERDINAND  C.IOLEHARTjm 


GIFT  OF 
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KING  ALCOHOL 
DETHRONED 


BY 

FERDINAND  COWLE  IGLEHART,  D.D., 

Author  "  The  Speaking  Oak  " 

Lecturer  on  Sociology  and  Temperance, 

Syracuse  University. 


THE  AMERICAN  ISSUE  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
WESTERVILLE,  OHIO 


e4t« 


\v 


COPYRIGHT,  1917 
BY  THE  CHRISTIAN  HERALD 


COPYRIGHT,  1919 
BY  FERDINAND  COWLE  IGLEHART 


PREFACE 

THE  dethronement  of  King  Alcohol  which  is 
being  accomplished  in  our  time  is  perhaps 
the  most  important  moral  event  in  the  his- 
tory of  mankind.  Alcohol  is  the  most  ancient  king 
in  the  world.  An  Arabian  story  tells  of  his  pres- 
ence as  far  back  as  the  beginning  of  the  race,  as 
the  conqueror  of  Satan  who  mastered  our  first 
parents.  This  is  the  story:  Satan  with  the  help 
of  sin  and  death  made  a  bridge  from  hell  to  earth. 
On  his  first  trip  across  it  he  visited  the  Garden  of 
Eden.  Among  other  things  he  found  growing  a 
grape  vine  bearing  luscious  innocent  fruit.  He 
immediately  began  its  cultivation  to  see  if  he  could 
get  a  product  from  it  that  would  hurt  and  destroy 
the  race  just  started.  He  first  poured  the  blood 
of  a  peacock  down  on  the  roots;  when  the  leaves 
came  out,  he  watered  the  vine  with  the  blood  of  an 
ape,  then  he  soaked  the  roots  with  the  blood  of  a 
lion.  He  drank  to  his  fill  of  the  fruit  of  this  in- 
nocent plant  thus  brutalized,  and  lay  down  among 
its  leaves  like  a  hog.  The  Arab  imagination  thus 
made  King  Alcohol  the  conqueror  of  Satan  in  the 
very  garden  where  he  himself  was  the  master. 

Moses    only   begins   to   write   the   Pentateuch 
when  he  thus  mentions  the  mastery  of  the  head  of 

iii 


IV 


PREFACE 


the  new  race  by  King  Alcohol:  "And  Noah  began 
to  be  a  husbandman,  and  he  planted  a  vineyard; 
and  he  drank  of  the  wine  and  was  drunken."  As 
the  ancient  nations  grew  King  Alcohol's  empire 
extended  over  them,  destroying  some  of  them, 
notably  Babylon. 

In  classical  antiquity  this  demon  king  is  named 
Bacchus,  the  god  of  wine.  He  was  the  unlawful 
son  of  Jupiter  brought  into  the  world  by  the  anger 
of  Juno  in  a  fierce  thunderstorm  to  incarnate  every 
evil,  and  inflict  every  earthly  suffering.  Seated  in 
his  chariot  drawn  by  panthers  he  drove  from 
nation  to  nation  promising  it  joy  and  prosperity 
but  bringing  to  it  misery  and  ruin. 

When  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  became  the  domi- 
nant one  of  the  earth,  King  Alcohol  conquered  it, 
loading  ships  that  had  Bibles  and  missionaries  for 
the  heathen  with  barrels  of  liquor  and  giving  the 
most  Christian  and  civilized  nations  of  the  world 
the  distinction  of  being  the  most  drunken.  This 
present  revolution  that  is  shaking  Bacchus  from 
his  throne  is  the  revolt  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  con- 
science against  his  baleful  rule,  which  was  weaken- 
ing and  destroying  the  race.  From  its  birth  alco- 
hol ruled  our  nation.  Ten  years  ago  there  were 
only  three  dry  States,  now  there  are  twenty-six, 
seven  within  the  past  twelve  months,  and  two- 
thirds  of  the  area  and  sixty  per  cent  of  the  popula- 
tion is  under  Prohibition.  The  Rum  King  is  de- 
throned in  the  United  States. 


PREFACE  v 

This  book  records  in  detail  the  agencies  em- 
ployed in  deposing  this  rum  despot  from  his  au- 
thority, including  those  of  science,  big  business, 
politics,  the  ballot,  the  home,  womanhood  and  the 
church. 

Facts,  facts,  facts  are  killing  the  liquor  traffic, 
and  hence  I  have  packed  this  book  as  full  of  them 
as  I  knew  how.  I  have  taken  a  few  facts  from  the 
books  but  almost  all  of  them  from  living  men  in 
our  own  land,  and  taken  them  first  off  from  their 
lips  or  pens.  I  have  not  hesitated  to  go  hundreds 
of  miles  to  find  a  man  who  had  a  fact  that  I 
needed  for  record  here.  The  facts  revealed  by 
these  pages  contradict  things  the  liquor  people 
say  are  facts  and  claim  as  such  in  their  literature. 
For  instance,  they  say  that  beer  is  liquid  bread; 
the  facts  we  have  show  conclusively  that* it  and 
the  other  intoxicants  are  not  liquid  food  but  liquid 
poison  to  kill  the  body  and  mind 

Much  space  has  been  given  to  proving  the  fact 
that  Prohibition  prohibits.  The  last  ditch  into 
which  the  liquor  forces  have  retired  is  the  argu- 
ment that  Prohibition  does  not  prohibit.  Desert- 
ing the  old  argument  of  personal  liberty  and  oppo- 
sition to  sumptuary  laws,  driven  from  the  field  of 
high  license,  they  have  made  this  last  stand  on  the 
claim  that  prohibition  is  a  failure.  And  the  claim 
is  made  with  such  shrewdness  that  many  of  our 
best  people  are  deceived  by  it.  This  book  con- 
tains the  positive  testimony  of  the  Governors  and 


vi  PREFACE 

United  States  Senators  of  a  majority  of  the  dry- 
States  that  Prohibition  does  prohibit,  and  that  that 
is  the  reason  why  no  dry  State  is  thinking  for  a 
moment  of  going  back  to  license  and  why  other 
States  follow  their  example.  If  time  and  space 
had  been  allowed  other  Governors  and  Senators 
of  Prohibition  States  would  have  given  their  testi- 
mony. 

We  regret  that  there  was  only  space  enough  to 
make  a  record  of  the  fight  on  alcohol  in  the  States 
made  dry.  The  temperance  workers  in  the  near- 
dry  States  and  wettest  ones  have  been  as  able,  con- 
secrated and  successful  in  proportion  as  the  heroic 
ones  in  the  Prohibition  States. 

This  book  is  radical  from  start  to  finish.  In 
questions  of  policy  there  are  two  sides.  In  a  ques- 
tion of  principle  there  is  but  one  side,  and  that  is 
the  right  side.  This  we  believe  is  a  question  of 
principle  and  that  the  right  thing  to  do  is  to  ex- 
terminate the  saloon.  This  book  is  radical  but  it 
does  not  contain  one  harsh  word  against  the  in- 
dividual liquor  dealer;  it  is  only  his  business  that 
is  condemned.  If  I  had  been  born  in  the  country 
and  under  the  circumstances  that  surrounded  him 
I  would  likely  have  shared  his  views  and  maybe 
have  followed  his  business.  I  have  made  clear 
that  I  consider  the  people  who  license  the  busi- 
ness as  responsible  as  the  dealers  themselves  for 
its  miseries  and  crimes. 

The  book  is  a  militant  one.    Those  who  are  in 


PREFACE  vii 

the  campaign,  the  preachers,  editors  of  secular  and 
religious  papers,  speakers,  workers  in  the  temper- 
ance and  church  organizations,  in  Young  Men's 
Christian  Associations,  Sunday  Schools  and  re- 
form service  of  all  kinds,  and  the  millions  of 
voters  who  have  now  entered  into  this  war  on 
alcohol,  will  find  ammunition  and  inspiration  for 
the  conflict. 

It  is  the  intention  that  this  book  should  em- 
phasize the  moral  and  spiritual  instrumentalities 
in  the  dethronement  of  Alcohol,  should  regard 
religion  as  the  dominant  element  in  overthrowing 
this  evil,  recognizing  God  as  a  personal  factor  in 
leading  the  Church  against  this  vice  for  its  destruc- 
tion, and  thus  become  a  real  Gospel  message. 
The  Galilean  peasant  who  rode  into  the  city  over 
the  palm  branches  is  the  real  King  today.  With 
truth,  righteousness,  love  and  life,  he  is  not  only 
dethroning  but  destroying  King  Alcohol. 

This  book  goes  out  with  the  hope  that  it  may 
reclaim  some  drunkard;  draw  away  from  danger 
some  moderate  drinker  who  can  drink  or  leave  it 
alone,  as  he  pleases,  who  can  quit  any  time,  but 
never  does;  keep  some  young  man  or  woman  from 
the  first  glass  that  has  all  the  rest  of  evil  in  it; 
may  inspire  the  old  temperance  workers  to  re- 
newed diligence;  may  give  encouragement  to  the 
millions  of  voters  in  the  churches  to  a  double  quick 
drive  that  shall  overthrow  the  demon  King,  and 
wake  up  the  cowardly  and  sleepy  ones  in  and  out 


viii  PREFACE 

of  the  Church  who  have  let  God  and  good  people 
destroy  the  greatest  evil  of  the  centuries  in  their 
time  and  under  their  very  eyes,  and  they  have 
no  part  in  the  contest;  and  that  some  soul  may  be 
saved  for  time  and  eternity. 

The  book  goes  out  with  a  prayer  that  God,  who 
is  destroying  the  liquor  traffic,  may  take  it  and  use 
it  to  honor  Him,  promote  His  Kingdom,  and  bless 
our  fellowmen. 

F.  C.  I. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY i 

II.  ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 33 

III.  ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE 55 

IV.  ALCOHOL  AND  CAPITAL 82 

V.  ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR 97 

VI.  THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN 121 

VII.  THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN 148 

VIII.  PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES 172 

IX.  ROOSEVELT  AND  SUNDAY  SALOON...   193 

X.  THE  SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON  214 

XL  THE  SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON  245 

XII.  PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST 259 

XIII.  PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST 272 

XIV.  BRYAN  CHAMPIONS  PROHIBITION  .  .  .   289 
XV.  FEDERAL  LEGISLATION 293 

XVI.  WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL.  ...  311 

XVII.  FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS 339 

XVIII.  ALCOHOL  AND  THEOLOGY 362 


KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 


CHAPTER  I 

ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY 

THE  drink  problem  is  primarily  a  psychologi- 
cal one,  having  its  basis  in  the  deepest  in- 
stincts of  the  human  souL 
To  get  at  the  bottom  of  the  liquor  question  we 
have  to  go  down  into  the  renter  of  the  hamin 
heart.     There  we  find  two  thirsts,  one  for  drink, 
one  for  gold.     The  thirst  of  the  man  for  intoxi- 
cants who  consumes,  and  the  thirst  for  money  that 
prompts  the  man  to  manufacture  and  sell  to  him, 
are  the  two  halves  or  the  all  of  the  liquor  problem. 
The  appetite  for  intoxicants  is  a  soul  thirst.    If 
it  were  a  body  thirst  it  could  be  satisfied,  and  there 
would  be  no  liquor  question  to  disturb  or  settle.    All 
the  forms  of  intemperance  are  only  the  floggings 
the  poor  body  gets  because  it  can  not  drink  enough 
to  satisfy  the  thirst  of  the  soul.     The  lower  ani- 
mals will  not  get  drunk;  they  are  too  wise  to  take 
stimulants  even  in  moderation.     The  reason  why 
they  will  not  touch  intoxicants  is  that  they  have 


2        KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

no  soul.  It  is  only  because  man  has  this  immortal 
nature  that  he  can  have  a  thirst  for  strong  drink, 
reel  with  rum  or  fill  a  drunkard's  grave. 

The  thirst  of  the  soul  which  alcohol  pretends 
to  satisfy  is  that  for  stimulation,  illumination  and 
inspiration.  This  is  a  God-given  appetite  which  He 
intended  should  be  satisfied  by  truth,  righteous- 
ness, love,  by  himself,  the  embodiment  of  these  at- 
tributes. He  gives  himself :  all  truth,  all  holiness, 
all  love,  to  be  the  soul's  satisfaction,  food,  growth, 
life  and  destiny.  To  satisfy  this  appetite  the 
father  of  lies,  in  the  person  of  King  Alcohol,  offers 
himself  as  a  substitute  instead  of  God  as  the  in- 
spiration, the  life,  the  joy  of  the  soul.  What  a 
failure,  what  a  fraud,  what  a  tragedy  is  the  sub- 
stitute* and  how  long-continued  and  widespread 
has  been  his  diabolical  deception!  God  made 
fruits  and  grains  and  vegetables  as  food  for  the 
body,  but  the  evil  one  set  his  ingenuity  to  work 
to  produce  something  to  touch  the  immortal  soul, 
and  has  seized  upon  these  products  and  com- 
pelled them  to  yield  some  "spirits"  that  will  pan- 
der to  it,  and  by  his  baleful  alchemy  has  turned 
grapes  and  other  fruits,  wheat,  barley,  corn  and 
other  cereals,  potatoes  and  other  vegetables  into 
wine,  whiskey,  brandy,  beer  and  other  intoxicants. 
He  killed  the  vitality  of  the  fruit  and  grain  by  fer- 
mentation and  distillation,  and  transmuted  the 
food  into  a  poison  to  destroy  soul  and  body,  which 
product  is  death  as  a  substitute  for  life,  a  demon 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY        3 

in  the  place  of  God  as  a  food  for  the  soul.  This 
demon  alcohol  science  calls  a  "spirit";  Shake- 
speare names  this  spirit  a  "devil."  In  "Othello" 
he  says:  "O  thou  invisible  spirit  of  wine!  If  thou 
hast  no  name  to  be  known  by,  let  us  call  thee 
devil!" 

The  craving  for  strong  drink,  then,  is  a  divine 
appetite  which  is  perverted  by  the  devil  alcohol. 
One  of  the  most  distinguished  English  authors,  in 
a  poem,  "The  Drinking  Pot,"  tells  the  story  of 
John  and  Jane,  brother  and  sister,  who  had  a 
pewter  mug  which  served  as  a  mutual  drinking- 
cup  for  both.  In  the  bottom  of  the  mug  there  was 
an  angel's  face  etched  by  some  rude  carver  on  the 
metal.  John  would  pass  over  the  frothing  mug  to 
Jane,  who,  to  his  intense  astonishment,  drained  it 
to  the  bottom.  Thereafter  he  would  quench  his 
own  thirst  first,  but  still  Jane  would  drain  what 
was  left.  John  stoutly  expostulated,  but,  as  the 
poet  tells, 

"She  loved  to  see  the  angel  there, 
And  so  she  drained  the  pot." 

John  resolved  to  stop  her  drinking,  so  he  took 
the  tankard  to  the  pewterer,  who  hammered  the 
angePs  face  inside  and  etched  that  of  a  devil 
instead.  To  John's  disgust  Jane's  thirst  was  as 
insatiable  as  before. 

The  intoxicating  cup  has  etched  in  it  the  face  of 
an  angel  to  which  the  drinker  looks  for  exhilara- 


4       KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

tion,  happiness  and  peace ;  but  the  angel's  face  is 
hammered  out  and  that  of  the  devil  takes  its  place. 
The  soul  thirst  of  the  drinker  is  one-half,  the 
soul  hunger  for  money  in  the  dealer  is  the  second 
half  of  the  liquor  problem.  The  thirst  for  gold, 
like  that  for  stimulation,  is  perverted  into  the  vice 
of  avarice.  The  desire  for  accumulation  is  proper 
when  it  does  not  become  supreme,  and  when  it 
renders  an  equivalent.  Earth  witnesses  no  more 
greedy  avarice  than  that  of  the  liquor  traffic.  It 
so  loves  money  for  the  money's  sake  that  it  will 
|not  only  not  render  an  equivalent,  but  will  inflict 
damage  on  those  who  buy  its  wares.  It  is  this 
insatiable  greed  for  money  that  has  built  every 
brewery  and  distillery,  and  opened  every  drinking 
place  in  the  land,  and  keeps  it  going.  It  is  this 
hunger  for  money  that  puts  up  the  fight  in  every 
village,  city,  State,  and  at  Washington  against  all 
measures  to  restrict  or  abolish  the  iniquitous  traf- 
fic. If  it  were  not  for  this  base  greed  for  ill- 
gotten  gain  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  intoxi- 
cants as  a  beverage  would  instantly  cease,  and  the 
liquor  problem  would  be  solved.  King  Alcohol, 
having  all  the  beastly  vices,  is  impelled  by  this 
polite  vice  of  avarice,  and  by  it  he  has  become 
fabulously  rich  and  proud.  He  holds  a  golden 
scepter  and  sits  upon  a  throne  of  solid  gold. 
Shakespeare,  who  knew  the  human  heart  so  well 
and  seeing  alcohol  there  called  it  "devil,"  saw 
also  there  the  devil  avarice,  in  whose  description 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY        5 

in  "Macbeth"  he  gives  us  this  life-sized  portrait 
of  Alcohol,  the  bloated  money  king: 

"With  this  there  grows, 
In  my  most  ill-composed  affection,  such 
A  staunchless  avarice,  that  were  I  a  king, 
I  should  cut  off  the  nobles  for  their  lands, 
Desire  his  jewels,  and  this  other 's  house, 
And  my  more-having  would  be  as  a  sauce 
To  make  me  hunger  more,  that  I  should  forge 
Quarrels  unjust  against  the  good  and  loyal, 
Destroying  them  for  wealth." 

Moloch  of  old,  whose  brazen  form  held  out  its 
hand  for  the  money  of  the  people,  and  whose 
fires  consumed  the  sons  offered  as  victims,  was 
merciful  compared  to  the  Moloch  of  rum,  whose 
hands  demand  a  billion  dollars  of  the  people's 
money  and  every  year  one  hundred  thousand  of 
their  best  sons. 

INJURY    TO    THE    BRAIN 

God  put  brains  in  a  cup  at  the  top  of  a  man  s 
head  to  give  him  his  place  in  the  scale  of  being, 
and  to  dominate  himself  and  the  world.  Alcohol 
attacks  the  brain  and  disturbs  its  mental  processes, 
reduces  man  in  the  scale  of  being  to  that  of 
bestiality,  makes  him  the  slave  of  every  circum- 
stance and  of  every  evil  habit.  There  are  certain 
fat-like  substances  called  lipoids,  which  are  a  part 
of  every  body  cell  and  are  found  in  largest  pro- 


6       KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

portion  in  the  brain  and  other  parts  of  the  ner- 
vous system.  When  either  chloroform  or  similar 
drugs  are  used  to  produce  unconsciousness  they  do 
so  by  combining  with  these  lipoids.  Alcohol,  a 
narcotic  drug,  with  an  especial  affinity  for  them, 
goes  straight  for  these  substances,  injuring  them, 
and,  if  allowed  to  do  its  finished  work,  destroying 
the  tissue  and  rational  mental  processes  proceed- 
ing from  it. 

Doctor  Henry  Smith  Williams,  the  noted  psy- 
chologist, in  speaking  of  the  influence  of  alcohol 
on  the  brain  cells,  says:  "It  is  a  fact  familiar  to 
every  student  of  evolution  that,  generally  speak- 
ing, the.  most  unstable  tissues  of  an  organism  are 
the  ones  most  recently  evolved,  that  is  to  say,  the 
most  highly  developed  and  complex  tissues.  The 
most  delicate  and  unstable  of  all  organic  tissues 
are  the  complex  central  nerve  cells  of  the  gray 
cortex  of  the  brain — the  cells  directly  associated 
with  the  exhibition  of  mental  processes.  These 
are  the  most  delicately  poised,  the  most  easily  dis- 
turbed in  function,  of  all  organic  tissues.  It  fol- 
lows that  these  are  the  tissues  that  come  earliest 
and  most  persistently  under  the  influence  of  the 
alcoholic  poison.  A  given  individual  may  have  a 
highly  susceptible  liver  or  kidney  or  heart,  through 
hereditary  influences,  or  through  some  peculiarity 
of  his  environment;  but  in  general  the  brain,  the 
organ  of  the  mind,  is  the  organ  whose  tissues  are 
the  most  susceptible.  So  when  the  dissecting- 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY        7 

knife  reveals,  post  mortem,  a  hobnailed  liver,  or 
an  alcohol  kidney,  stomach  or  heart,  it  will  almost 
invariably  reveal  also  a  shrunken  and  watery 
alcohol  brain." 

Doctor  Adolph  Meyer,  psychiatrist-in-chief  of 
the  Johns  Hopkins  Hospital  in  Baltimore,  Mary- 
land, whose  knowledge  and  experience  make  him 
an  authority  on  the  subject,  dictated  to  his  steno- 
grapher for  me  a  statement  from  which  I  quote 
the  following: 

The  nervous  system  is  remarkably  resistive  to  most 
narcotics  and  capable  of  far-reaching  recoverability  from 
the  effects  of  the  majority  of  acute  intoxications.  Pro- 
found intoxication,  and  especially  repeated  occurrence  of 
profound  intoxication,  does,  however,  give  evidence  of 
deterioration  of  certain  types  of  nerve  cells  and  nerve 
fibers  (the  commissure  fibers  in  the  cerebellum  and  in  the 
corpus  callosum),  and  especially  the  peripheral  nerves, 
which  are  apt  to  be  affected  in  the  form  of  multiple 
neuritis.  Of  greater  importance  is  the  change  in  the  cir- 
culation, as  shown  in  the  tendency  to  "wet  brain"  and 
the  thickening  and  water-logged  condition  of  the  mem- 
branes, involving  the  general  circulation  of  the  brain. 

As  in  all  intoxications,  the  functional  disorders  in  al- 
coholic intoxication  are  seen  before  the  tissue  changes. 
Excessive  relaxation  of  inhibition  and  animation  along  un- 
critical lines  constitute  the  supposed  gain  from  alcoholic 
stimulation.  The  reduction  of  fears  or  doubts,  of  nervous- 
ness, might  appear  as  a  beneficial  result,  but  the  effect  is 
temporary  and  apt  to  leave  the  person  paralyzed  for  all 
efforts  of  a  more  lasting  character.  The  "desire  for  more," 


8        KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

which  is  the  necessary  consequence  of  this  sham  help,  and 
the  great  tolerance  of  the  stomach  for  these  beverages  con- 
stitute the  most  serious  points  in  the  vicious  circle  pro- 
duced by  alcohol  consumption. 

CONFUSION  OF  MENTAL  PROCESSES 

There  is  ample  testimony  to  the  ill  effects  of  al- 
cohol on  mental  processes.  Hermann  von  Helm- 
holtz,  who  won  a  world  fame  in  the  realm  of 
science  in  his  professorship  of  Physics  at  Koenigs- 
burg,  Bonn,  Heidelberg  and  Berlin,  successively 
declared  that  the  very  smallest  quantity  of  alcohol 
served  effectively,  while  its  influence  lasted,  to 
banish  from  his  mhid  all  possibility  of  creative 
effort,  all  capacity  to  solve  an  abstruse  problem. 
Professor  James  said,  "The  reason  for  craving 
alcohol  is  that  it  is  an  anaesthetic  even  in  moderate 
quantities.  It  obliterates  a  part  of  the  field  of 
consciousness  and  abolishes  collateral  trains  of 
thought. " 

At  a  time  when  about  everybody  drank  and  it 
was  universally  believed  that  spirituous  liquors 
braced  the  body  and  brightened  the  intellect, 
Goethe,  that  splendid  specimen  of  physical  and 
mental  manhood  in  youth  and  old  age,  whose  writ- 
ings have  influenced  for  good  every  civilized  na- 
tion, and  whose  influence  increases  with  the  years, 
sounded  the  note  of  alarm  at  the  damage  of  drink 
to  the  intellect.  In  his  conversation  with  Ecker- 
mannof  January  18, 1827,  he  says:  "Schiller  neveF 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY        9 

drank  much;  he  was  very  temperate.  But  at  such 
moments  of  physical  weakness  he  sought  to  in- 
crease his  strength  by  taking  some  brandy  or  other 
spirituous  liquor.  This  preyed  upon  his  health, 
and  was  also  detrimental  to  the  productions  them- 
selves. For  what  judicious  critics  find  fault  with 
in  his  writings,  I  refer  to  this  source.  All  those 
passages  which  they  say  are  not  quite  right,  I 
should  like  to  call  pathological  passages,  since  he 
wrote  them  on  days  when  he  had  not  strength  to 
find  the  proper  and  true  motives."  In  his  conver- 
sation with  Eckermann  of  March  n,  1828, 
Goethe  said,  "Should  he  (the  dramatic  poet)  then 
try  to  force  this  productivity  that  he  lacks  by 
means  of  spirituous  liquors,  and  to  supplement 
what  is  insufficient,  this  would  probably  be  feas- 
ible, but  all  the  scenes  that  he  had  forced,  as  it 
were,  in  this  way  would  show  it  to  their  great 
disadvantage."  Schiller  himself  came  to  that 
conclusion  and  said,  uWine  invents  nothing,  it 
only  blabs  it  out." 

Doctor  John  Jacob  Abel,  professor  of  pharma- 
cology, Johns  Hopkins  Medical  College,  and 
editor  of  the  Journal  of  Pharmacology  and  Ex- 
perimental Therapeutics,  has  written:  "One-half 
to  one  bottle  of  wine,  or  two  to  four  glasses  of 
beer  a  day,  not  only  counteract  the  beneficial  ef- 
fects of  'practice'  in  any  given  occupation,  but 
also  depress  every  form  of  intellectual  activity; 
therefore  every  man  who,  according  to  his  own 


io     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

notions,  is  only  a  moderate  drinker,  places  him- 
self by  this  indulgence  on  a  lower  intellectual  level 
and  opposes  the  full  and  complete  utilization  of 
his  intellectual  powers." 

Professor  Emil  Kraepelin,  formerly  of  Heidel- 
berg, now  director  of  the  clinic  of  psychiatry  at 
the  University  of  Munich,  in  an  address  to  the 
students  said:  "From  the  recommendation  of  a 
wine-dealer  I  learn  that  wine  enlivens  the  imagina- 
tion, facilitates  thought-connection,  quickens  the 
memory,  is  favorable  to  the  clear  and  rapid  re- 
ception of  impressions  and  to  the  formation  of 
judgments.  Every  word  a  lie!  Careful  investi- 
gation, continued  for  decades  and  conducted  with 
the  finest  apparatus,  to  determine  the  physical  ef- 
fects of  alcohol,  has  shown  beyond  a  doubt  that 
exactly  the  opposite  of  all  those  assertions  is 
actually  the  case.  Alcohol  paralyzes  the  imagina- 
tion, renders  the  connection  of  ideas  more  difficult, 
weakens  and  falsifies  the  memory,  and  produces 
a  very  marked  derangement  of  the  power  of  ap- 
prehension and  of  judgment." 

Science  has  learned  to  measure  the  damage  of 
alcohol  to  the  mind.  Purer,  Rudin,  Kraepelin, 
Smith  and  others  took  individuals  and  groups  and 
after  administering  to  them  moderate  doses  of 
beer  or  wine  tested  their  ability  to  memorize,  add 
figures,  read  paragraphs  or  associate  ideas,  and  it 
was  found  that  there  was  marked  deterioration 
in  the  ability  to  remember,  to  cast  up  figures  or 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      n 

to  do  any  serious  kind  of  thinking,  and  that  the 
deterioration  in  the  test  was  marked  by  the  sound- 
ing of  gongs,  the  lifting  of  the  fingers  from  elec- 
trical keys,  and  by  closing  the  periods  every  half- 
hour  or  so  and  minutely  recording  the  hits  and 
misses.  It  was  also  found  that  this  reduced  capac- 
ity for  the  exercise  of  the  mental  functions  per- 
sisted one  or  two  days  or  even  more  after  the  al- 
cohol had  been  taken.  In  other  tests  alcohol  was 
given  on  one  day  or  group  of  days  and  none  al- 
lowed for  the  next  period  of  similar  duration. 
A  test  was  made  with  a  squad  of  quick-firing  sol- 
diers who  on  days  when  they  drank  nothing  could 
hit  the  target  twenty  times  in  thirty  shots,  and 
when  they  had  taken  from  three  to  four  pints  of 
beer  could  only  hit  it  three  times. 

Aschaffenburg,  a  former  pupil  of  Kraepelin, 
made  a  test  in  a  printing  office.  The  experiment 
extended  over  four  days.  The  first  and  third  days 
were  abstinence  days;  on  the  second  and  fourth 
the  men  were  allowed  to  have  a  little  less  than  a 
tumblerful  of  Greek  wine.  The  printed  copy  was 
identical.  The  result  of  the  experiment  was  that 
on  the  drinking  days,  and  those  of  most  moderate 
drinking,  too,  the  men  set  up  ten  per  cent  less  type 
than  .on  the  days  they  took  no  liquor. 

Wundt,  the  father  of  physiological  experi- 
mental psychology,  measured  the  discharge  of  sin- 
gle reactions  from  £  single  stimulus.  Kraepelin 
introduced  the  chronometer  for  measuring  pro- 


12      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

longed  mental  work,  and  Dr.  A.  Smith  of  Schloss 
Marback  made  still  further  experiments  and  dis- 
coveries in  the  important  field  of  measuring  the 
deteriorating  influence  of  drink  on  mental  pro- 
cesses. 

These  discoveries  of  the  ill  effects  of  alcohol  on 
the  mind  were  a  great  surprise  to  science.  For 
from  time  immemorial  alcohol  in  moderation  was 
considered  not  only  beneficial  but  indispensable  to 
the  highest  mental  and  physical  effort.  This  opin- 
ion was  held  because  subjective  psychology  de- 
clared it  to  be  true.  Through  all  the  centuries 
men  had  declared  that  use  of  alcohol  had  made 
them  feel  better  and  enabled  them  to  do  more 
work,  and  science  accepted  that  verdict  as  admit- 
ting of  no  debate.  And  when  the  scientists  who 
have  discovered  the  damage  of  drink  to  the  in- 
tellect began  their  investigation  only  compara- 
tively recently  they  did  so  with  the  full  belief  that 
alcohol  was  a  blessing  and  started  in  to  measure 
the  beneficial  effect  on  intellectual  processes.  Lo 
and  behold,  to  their  astonishment,  they  found  that 
the  opposite  was  true,  that  alcohol  was  a  positive 
injury  to  the  mind;  and  they  measured  that  injury 
so  accurately  and  conclusively  that  science  has 
been  compelled  to  change  its  mind  and  reverse  its 
verdict  of  the  ages;  and  psychology,  which  has 
been  one  of  the  strongest  friends  and  supporters 
of  alcohol,  has  become  one  of  its  most  irrecon- 
cilable enemies. 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      13 

Professor  Emil  Kraepelin,  than  whom  there  is 
no  greater  authority  on  this  subject,  in  an  ad- 
dress to  the  students  of  the  University  of  Munich, 
confesses  that  he  began  the  measurement  of  men- 
tal processes  with  the  firm  belief  that  alcohol  was 
a  benefit  to  the  mind,  but  that  positive  scientific 
facts  under  his  own  eye  had  compelled  a  change 
in  his  opinion.  These  are  his  words : 

I  myself  have  been  greatly  surprised  at  the  results  of 
accurate  experiments,  for  I  was  looking  for  such  favor- 
able effects  of  alcohol  upon  our  mental  life  as  should 
compensate  for  the  mischief  wrought  thereby.  But  now 
we  see  clearly  what  is  the  nature  of  the  condition  into 
which  we  put  ourselves  by  the  use  of  alcohol;  a  paralyz- 
ing of  the  power  of  apprehension  and  the  highest  mental 
functions,  which  finally  leads  to  the  well-defined  clouding 
of  consciousness,  and  an  excitation  in  the  realm  of  the  im- 
pulses, which  lets  the  control  of  our  wills  slip  away  from 
us  more  and  more.  And  this  is  the  condition  that  we  light- 
heartedly  make  the  center  of  our  good  times,  for  the  sake 
of  which  we  fondly  form  those  drinking-customs  which 
devastate  our  nation.  Even  if  alcoholic  intoxication  pro- 
duced all  those  desired  effects  upon  our  mental  life  which 
are  ascribed  to  it  by  liquor-dealers  and  drinkers  in  their 
enthusiasm,  we  should  have  to  turn  from  it  in  horror  as 
soon  as  we  beheld  its  terrible  footprints  on  our  national 
life. 

The  friendliness  of  science  to  alcohol  and  its 
championship  of  it  is  mentioned  in  an  address  by 
Professor  Smith  of  Schloss  Marbach  in  a  lecture 


i4      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

before  the  Munich  section  of  the  German  Society 
for  Ethical  Culture,  in  which  he  says: 

It  was  to  be  expected  that  with  the  animosity  prevail- 
ing among  all  classes  toward  all  experiments  that  dis- 
credit the  use  of  alcohol,  strictly  scientific  circles  being  no 
exception,  voices  would  be  raised  charging  the  experi- 
ments with  at  least  an  auto-suggestive  influence,  if  not 
directly  accusing  them  of  intentional  misrepresentation. 
The  necessity  for  forestalling  such  objection  was  so  im- 
pressed upon  me  from  the  start  that  I  had  a  second  per- 
son repeat  some  of  my  experiments  and  obtained  in  a 
friendly  way  for  this  purpose  a  schoolmaster  who  lived 
near  me,  whom  I  knew  to  be  a  thoroughly  reliable  man, 
but  who  on  the  other  hand,  I  must  admit,  would  have 
been  glad  to  have  his  tests  produce  results  opposite  from 
mine,  for  he  was  of  the  opinion  that  alcohol  in  moderate 
doses  was  practically  indispensable  for  promoting  physical 
and  mental  work.  This  man  practiced  total  abstinence 
for  four  days  before  beginning  the  experiment.  Then  for 
eight  successive  days  he  worked  without  alcohol,  then  for 
six  days  under  the  influence  of  eighty-gram  doses  of  alco- 
hol so  arranged  that  the  work  was  done  twenty  hours 
after  the  alcohol  was  taken.  Then  there  were  six  days 
without  alcohol  and  then  again  two  days  with  it  at  the 
close.  His  working  ability  for  both  memorizing  and  add- 
ing fell  for  the  first  time  directly,  after  the  first  alcohol 
was  taken;  then  it  arose  again  as  suddenly  in  the  follow- 
ing non-alcoholic  periods,  and  with  the  second  alcoholic 
period  it  again  suddenly  dropped. 

Aschaffenburg  makes  this  record  of  a  test  show- 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      15 

ing  the  mental  effect  of  beer-  and  wine-drinking 
on  the  school  children  of  Vienna : 

Observations  were  made  by  Bayer,  who  investigated  the 
habits  of  591  children  in  a  public  school  in  Vienna.  These 
pupils  were  ranked  by  their  teachers  into  three  groups,  de- 
noting progress  as  "good,"  "fair"  or  "poor"  respectively. 
Bayer  found  on  investigation  that  134  of  these  pupils 
took  no  alcoholic  drink;  that  164  drank  alcoholics  very 
seldom;  but  that  219  drank  beer  or  wine  once  a  day; 
71  drank  it  twice  daily,  and  3  drank  it  with  every  meal. 
Of  the  total  abstainers  42  per  .cent,  ranked  in  the  school 
as  "good,"  49  per  cent,  as  "fair,"  and  9  per  cent,  as  "poor." 
Of  the  occasional  drinkers  34  per  cent,  ranked  as  "good," 
57  per  cent,  as  "fair,"  and  9  per  cent,  as  "poor."  Of  the 
daily  drinkers  28  per  cent,  ranked  as  "good,"  58  per  cent, 
as  "fair"  and  14  per  cent,  as  "poor."  Those  who  drank 
twice  daily  ranked  25  per  cent,  "good,"  58  per  cent, 
"fair"  and  18  per  cent,  "poor."  Of  the  three  who  drank 
thrice  daily,  one  ranked  as  "fair,"  the  other  two  as 
"poor." 

The  present  Department  of  Health  of  New 
York  City  issued  a  bulletin  on  the  deleterious  ef- 
fect of  alcohol  on  the  brain  and  thought  growing 
out  of  it.  The  following  quotations  from  it  are 
peculiarly  appropriate  here: 

The  chief  difference  between  man  and  the  lower  ani- 
mals is  the  brain  development.  The  brain  is  man's  dear- 
est possession,  and  nature's  best  gift.  Now,  because  of  the 
fact  that  the  brain  is  such  a  wonderful  piece  of  machinery, 
and  such  a  complicated  machine,  it  is  the  most  delicate 


1 6     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

and  most  sensitive  part  of  the  body.  Moreover,  the  parts 
of  the  brain  that  distinguish  it  most  are  its  most  sensitive 
parts.  These  parts  are  the  ones  that  have  to  do  with 
thinking,  judging  and  controlling  our  actions.  A  thing 
that  is  very  sensitive  is  a  thing  that  is  very  easily  bruised, 
hurt  and  damaged.  Alcohol  is  a  poison  to  all  parts  of  the 
body,  but  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  the  part  which 
alcohol  can  damage  most  quickly  and  to  the  greatest  ex- 
tent is  the  delicate  and  sensitive  brain.  And  that  is  a 
fact.  The  first  effect  of  taking  alcohol  into  the  system  is 
felt  by  the  brain;  the  worst  damage  is  done  to  the  most 
delicate  parts  of  the  brain;  and  so  it  follows  that  when  a 
man  takes  a  couple  of  drinks  of  strong  liquor  it  promptly 
muddles  his  thinking,  weakens  his  judgment,  and  loosens 
his  control  over  his  actions.  In  other  words,  it  quickly 
steals  from  him  what  is  best  in  him;  it  reduces  the  force 
of  highest  brain  control  which  nature  has  given  him, 
which  he  has  developed  through  ages,  and  which  marks 
him  out  as  different  from  brute  animals.  Civilized  man 
equals  brute  animal  plus  high  brain  development.  Alcohol 
blots  out  the  "high  brain  development"  and  leaves  behind 
the  brute  animal. 

Now,  of  course,  we  don't  mean  to  say  that  when  a  per- 
son takes  a  drink  of  anything  containing  alcohol  he  is 
reduced  at  once  to  a  brute  animal ;  but  very  few  will  dis- 
pute that  a  drunken  person  is  not  much  better  than  a 
brute  animal.  And  the  reason  he  has  been  reduced  to  such 
a  state  by  the  alcohol  is  that  before  he  can  take  enough  of 
it  to  kill  his  body  he  has  had  enough  to  paralyze  his  brain, 
especially  the  highest  parts  of  his  brain.  It  has  paralyzed 
his  power  to  think,  it  has  paralyzed  his  power  to  judge, 
it  has  paralyzed  his  power  to  control  his  actions.  The 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      17 

amount  of  alcohol  which  makes  a  person  drunken  varies 
with  different  people.  Some  can  stand  very  little,  others 
a  great  deal.  However,  even  a  very  little,  though  it 
does  not  show  itself  in  drunkenness,  has  a  damaging  effect 
on  the  brain.  This  is  what  we  want  to  point  out  particu- 
larly. Too  many  people  think  that  if  they  drink  alcohol 
in  moderation,  such,  for  example,  as  three  or  four  glasses 
of  beer  a  day,  or  one  or  two  drinks  of  whiskey  a  day, 
they  are  not  doing  themselves  any  harm  at  all.  Very 
many  think  that  they  may  safely  drink  as  long  as  they 
stop  before  getting  drunk.  These  are  very  dangerous  and 
mistaken  ideas  to  have.  Drinking,  even  in  moderation, 
has  dangers  for  the  brains  and  nerves,  and  steady  drink- 
ing is  vary  bad. 

Women  and  young  persons  sooner  become  victims  to  the 
brain-weakening  effects  of  alcohol  than  men  and  older 
persons.  That  is  because  women  and  young  persons  have 
more  sensitive  nervous  systems  and  brains.  So  it  is  clear 
that  women  and  young  persons  should  be  particularly 
careful  to  steer  clear  of  liquor. 

The  effect  of  moderate  drinking  on  the  powers  of  the 
brain  were  carefully  studied.  For  example,  a  number 
of  bookkeepers  who  have  to  deal  with  figures,  which  is  the 
kind  of  work  which  requires  a  clear  brain  and  also  the 
kind  whose  quality  can  be  easily  compared  from  time  to 
time,  were  given  alcohol  daily  for  two  weeks  in  amounts 
that  would  equal  what  is  contained  in  about  four  glasses 
of  beer.  At  the  end  of  two  weeks  their  ability  to  add 
simple  figures  was  reduced  by  15  per  cent. 

There  are  psychologists  of  great  ability  and  re- 
nown who  hold  to  the  old  opinion  of  science  that 


1 8      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

alcohol  does  not  harm,  but  helps  the  mental  pro- 
cesses. The  late  Doctor  Hugo  Miinsterberg,  for 
twenty-five  years  the  head  of  the  psychological 
department  of  Harvard  University,  the  highest 
authority  in  America  on  German  ideas  and  ideals, 
in  McClure's  Magazine  for  August,  1908,  makes 
the  most  specious  plea  for  that  side  of  the  ques- 
tion we  have  seen.  That  plea  the  editor  of  the 
magazine  in  the  same  issue  declines  to  be  respon- 
sible for.  But  the  same  article  has  confessions 
that  largely  counteract  the  effect  of  the  professor's 
scientific  contentions.  Here  is  one  of  them : 

Of  course,  alcohol  before  serious  intellectual  work  dis- 
turbs me.  I  live  most  comfortably  in  a  pleasant  tem- 
perance town  which  will,  I  hope,  vote  no-license  year 
by  year  as  long  as  freshmen  stroll  over  the  old  Harvard 
yard. 

The  pleasant  temperance  town  to  which  Doctor 
Miinsterberg  refers  is  the  city  of  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  the  seat  of  Harvard  University, 
small  as  compared  with  Boston,  of  which  it  is  a 
suburb,  but  itself  a  city  of  ever  100,000  inhab- 
itants; and  it  is  likely  that  this  brilliant  scientific 
champion  of  alcohol  and  other  distinguished 
members  of  the  faculty  at  Harvard  voted  no- 
license  in  the  wet  and  dry  campaigns  carried  on  in 
that  college  town  for  the  past  twenty  years. 

Professor  Miinsterberg  then  continues  his  ad- 
missions : 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      19 

The  problem  of  Prohibition  does  not  affect  my  thirst, 
but  it  greatly  interests  my  scientific  conscience;  not  as  a 
German,  but  as  a  psychologist,  I  feel  impelled  to  add  a 
word  to  the  discussion  which  is  suddenly  reverberating 
over  the  whole  country.  But  is  it  really  a  discussion 
which  we  hear?  Is  it  not  rather  a  one-sided  denuncia- 
tion of  alcohol,  repeated  a  million  times  with  louder  and 
louder  voice,  an  outcry  ever  swelling  in  its  vehemence? 
On  the  other  side  there  may  be  the  protests  of  the  dis- 
tillers and  brewers  and  wine-growers  and  bottle-makers 
and  saloonkeepers  and  perhaps  some  timid  declarations 
of  thirsty  societies,  but  such  protests  do  not  count,  since 
they  have  all  the  ear-marks  of  selfishness;  they  are  ruled 
out  and  no  one  listens,  just  as  no  one  would  consult  the 
thieves  if  a  new  statute  against  pickpockets  was  planned. 
So  far  as  the  disinterested  public  is  concerned,  the  dis- 
cussion is  essentially  one-sided. 

The  professor  makes  another  confession  in  the 
article  which  might  be  used  to  advantage  as  a 
leaflet  by  the  Prohibitionists  in  wet  and  dry  cam- 
paigns anywhere.  It  is  this: 

Exaggerated  denunciation  of  the  Prohibition  movement 
is,  of  course,  ineffective.  Whoever  simply  takes  sides  with 
the  saloonkeeper  and  his  clientele — yes,  whoever  is  blind  to 
the  colossal  harm  which  alcohol  has  brought  and  is  now 
bringing  to  the  whole  country — is  unfit  to  be  heard  by 
those  who  have  the  healthy  and  sound  development  of  the 
nation  at  heart.  The  evils  which  are  connected  with  the 
drinking  habit  are  gigantic;  thousands  of  lives  and  many 
more  thousands  of  households  are  the  victims  every  year; 


20     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

disease  and  poverty  and  crime  grow  up  where  alcohol 
drenches  the  soul.  To  deny  it  means  to  ignore  the  teach- 
ings of  medicine  and  economics  and  criminology. 

In  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal  Professor  Miins- 
terberg  wrote. 

There  is  nothing  more  degrading  and  no  more  atro- 
cious insult  to  civilized  life  than  the  American  saloon.  It 
has  poisoned  the  social  atmosphere  for  the  masses;  in 
it  the  workingman  squanders  his  savings,  and  the  healthy 
man  devastates  his  energies  and  becomes  a  wreck.  Po- 
litical corruption  radiates  from  the  saloon  into  the  whole 
public  life,  and  a  thousand  ways  lead  from  the  saloon  to 
the  penitentiary.  It  is  a  blessed  movement  which  now 
turns  with  overwhelming  energy  against  the  horrors  of 
this  evil  and  unites  the  clean  minds  of  the  whole  nation 
in  an  untiring  fight  against  this  source  of  infection.  There 
may  be  disagreements  as  to  the  best  ways  and  means,  dis- 
agreement whether  strict  Prohibition  or  education  toward 
temperance  is  the  more  reliable  method;  but  there  is  no 
disagreement  as  to  the  fact  that  the  saloon  has  to  be  wiped 
out;  and  the  day  seems  near  indeed  when — thanks  to 
women — the  fight  against  the  saloon  will  be  taken  up 
in  almost  every  state. 

While  the  laboratory  of  the  chemist,  the  experi- 
ments of  the  psychologist,  the  accurate  measure- 
ments of  the  specialist  reveal  the  damage  of  drink 
to  the  brain  cells  and  mental  processes,  the  school 
of  practical  life  is  teaching  the  same  truth  in  the 
every-day  illustrations.  It  is  seen  in  communities 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      21 

where  intoxicating  liquors  are  allowed  in  the  gig- 
gle and  gabble  of  the  girl  in  the  street  car,  who, 
usually  reserved,  inflamed  with  wine,  makes  a 
fool  of  herself;  in  the  man  who,  not  usually  bold, 
without  voice  or  invitation,  befuddled  with  rum, 
insists  on  singing  a  solo  in  a  crowded  railway  car; 
or  in  the  man  stupefied  with  beer  who  has  sunk 
down  in  a  stupor  in  the  corner  of  the  seat  and  has 
to  be  shaken  by  the  conductor  till  his  teeth  rattle 
to  be  made  to  understand  that  it  is  his  ticket  that 
is  wanted;  in  the  poor  fellow  who  walks  out  of  the 
corner  groggery  and  incoherently  undertakes  to 
enter  into  conversation  with  every  stranger  he 
meets  to  tell  him  how  much  he  loves  him;  in  the 
smartest  boy  in  the  school  who  learned  the  way  to 
the  saloon,  and  as  a  man  walks  the  streets  a 
driveling  idiot;  in  the  cool,  level-headed,  honest, 
industrious  man  who  was  made  crazy  with  rum, 
and  as  a  maniac  slew  his  best  friend. 

A    SOURCE    OF    INSANITY 

Rum  is  a  demon  dominating  the  mind,  knowing 
that,  having  that,  it  possesses  all  the  rest  there  is 
in  man.     It  dulls  the  perceptions,  beclouds  the 
memory,  unsteadies  the  judgment,  crazes  the  im- 
I  agination,  unbalances  the  reason,  freezes  the  af- 
fections, sears  the  conscience,  and  paralyzes  the 
will- 
Alcohol  not  only  deteriorates  the  brain  cells,  be- 
fuddles the  intellect,  and  furnishes  the  tottering 


22      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

drunkard  and  wretch  with  the  delirium  tremens, 
but  it  becomes  the  devil  incarnate  in  its  assassina- 
tion of  the  intellect,  making  the  victim  unwittingly 
a  mental  suicide,  and  society,  by  its  license,  his  tor- 
turer and  mental  murderer. 

Doctor  Frederick  Peterson  in  New  York  City 
is  an  acknowledged  authority  on  mental  diseases; 
for  twenty  years  he  has  been  connected  with  Co- 
lumbia University,  the  past  fourteen  years  as 
clinic  professor  of  psychiatry.  I  called  upon  Dr. 
Peterson  to  ask  him  to  give  me  some  facts  as  to 
the  ill  effects  of  alcohol  on  the  brain,  nervous  sys- 
tem and  mental  processes.  His  knowledge  and 
experience  in  this  field  of  medical  science  make 
his  opinion  of  untold  value  to  the  cause  of  truth. 
He  said,  "I  have  read  a  paper  before  the  New 
York  State  Conference  of  Charities  and  Correc- 
tion, which  is  printed  in  the  New  York  Medical 
Journal,  which  I  think  contains  what  you  want." 
It  was  exactly  what  I  wanted.  Among  other 
things  in  the  paper  Doctor  Peterson  said : 

Insanity  and  epilepsy  are  among  the  diseases  that  taint 
our  progeny.  Alcohol  is  the  chief  poison  that  has  this 
baneful  power.  As  an  example  of  what  one  individual 
may  do  I  might  cite  the  oft-quoted  Jukes  family  in  the 
State  of  New  York.  One  hard  drinker  was  the  origina- 
tor of  this  family  which,  over  a  generation  ago,  when 
Dugdale  wrote  his  book,  had  become  already  1,200  in 
number.  In  his  summary  of  the  study  of  the  Jukes  family 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      23 

of  degenerates  the  author  says:  "Over  a  million  and  a 
quarter  dollars  of  loss  in  seventy-five  years,  caused  by  a 
single  family,  1,200  strong,  without  reckoning  the  cash 
paid  for  whisky  or  taking  into  account  the  entailment  of 
pauperism  and  crime  on  the  survivors  in  succeeding  gener- 
ations, and  the  incurable  disease,  idiocy,  and  insanity 
growing  out  of  this  debauchery,  and  reaching  further  than 
we  can  calculate."  This  is  one  family. 

In  the  State  of  New  York  there  are  now  some  30,000 
insane  in  the  public  and  private  hospitals,  and  it  is  esti- 
mated that  twenty  per  cent,  of  these,  or  6,000  patients, 
owe  their  insanity  to  alcohol.  In  all  the  asylums  of  the 
United  States  there  are  150,000  insane,  and  assuming  the 
same  percentage  there  are  30,000  individuals  in  this 
country  in  whom  alcohol  has  brought  about  insanity. 
Doctor  MacDonald  calculates  that  one  insane  person  is 
an  approximate  loss  to  the  State  of  $400  a  year.  Hence 
the  actual  loss  in  money  to  the  State  of  New  York  through 
alcoholic  insanity  is  $2,400,000,  and  to  the  United  States 
$12,000,000  every  year.  There  is  not  time  here  to  take 
up  the  subject  of  the  relation  of  alcohol  to  pauperism  and 
crime.  But  what  I  want  to  point  out  is  that  the  asylums 
for  the  insane,  the  institutions  for  epileptics,  idiots  and 
feeble-minded,  the  prisons  and  the  county  poorhouses,  are 
representative,  as  far  as  their  alcoholic  population  is  con- 
cerned, of  the  extremes  of  alcoholic  indulgence  and  de- 
bauchery. Here  alcohol  has  done  its  worst  to  the  living 
individual.  Below  this  topmost  wave  of  ruin  and  deso- 
lation are  innumerable  gradations  of  alcoholism  down  to 
the  moderate  drinkers  and  the  temperate  or  occasional 
drinkers. 

The  race  is  reasonably  safe  from  further  contamination 


24     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

of  those  victims  of  alcohol  who  are  locked  away  in  the 
retreats  that  our  charitable  world  provides  for  them. 
It  is  otherwise  with  the  vaster  number  of  excessive 
drinkers,  who  are  free  to  work  any  havoc  in  the  social 
organism  and  who  are  direct  and  indirect  feeders  of  the 
institutions  named.  What  these  may  do  to  themselves, 
their  wives  and  their  children  and  their  children's  chil- 
dren we  have  come  to  learn,  and  it  is  because  of  this 
awakening  to  a  common  danger  to  the  human  race  that 
the  nations  of  the  earth  are  combined  in  a  common 
campaign.  It  is  not  a  single  Jukes  family  that  society  has 
ranged  itself  against,  but  against  the  legions  of  Jukes 
families  that  menace  the  human  stock.  My  views  on  this 
subject  briefly  expressed  are  printed  on  my  own  prescrip- 
tion blanks  as  follows: 

Alcohol  is  a  poison.  It  is  claimed  by  some  that  alcohol 
is  a  food.  If  so  it  is  a  poisoned  food.  The  daily  regular 
use  of  alcohol,  even  in  moderation,  often  leads  to  chronic 
alcoholism. 

One  is  poisoned  less  rapidly  by  the  use  of  beer  than  by 
drinking  wines,  gin,  whisky  and  brandy. 

Alcohol  is  one  of  the  most  common  causes  of  insanity, 
epilepsy,  paralysis,  diseases  of  the  liver  and  stomach,  dropsy 
and  tuberculosis. 

A  father  or  mother  who  drinks  poisons  the  children 
born  to  them,  so  that  many  die  in  infancy,  while  others 
grow  up  as  idiots  and  epileptics. 

Mr.  Filmore  Condit,  a  merchant  of  New  York, 
a  modest  potential  factor  of  moral  reform,  gave 
me  a  copy  of  his  pamphlet  on  " Alcohol  and  Insan- 
ity," quotations  from  which  follow: 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      25 

"August  Arrivey,  thirty  years  old,  a  printer  by  trade,  is 
under  arrest  here,  the  confessed  murderer  of  his  mother, 
Mrs.  Mary  Arrivey,  fifty-eight  years  old.  'The  man  in 
the  airship  told  me  to  do  it/  Arrivey  continually  mutters 
as  the  only  reason  for  his  crime.  Because  of  his  actions 
the  police  believe  him  insane.  Liquor  is  believed,  however, 
to  be  at  the  root  of  the  man's  crime,  as  he  had  for  the 
last  few  years  obtained  one  position  after  another,  only  to 
lose  them  in  rapid  succession  on  account  of  sprees.  Mrs. 
Arrivey  was  found  lying  in  a  pool  of  blood  in  the  kitchen, 
with  her  skull  crushed  and  her  face  gashed  as  if  from 
blows  from  a  hatchet.  Search  of  the  premises  disclosed  the 
son,  muttering  like  a  child,  hiding  behind  some  bushes  in 
the  yard.  Confronted  with  the  dead  body  of  his  mother, 
he  confessed  his  crime."  This  paragraph,  which  appeared 
in  a  Stockton,  California,  paper,  a  few  days  ago,  is  one 
which  shocks  us  for  a  moment  as  we  read  it,  and  is  then 
forgotten  as  a  commonplace  incident  of  life. 

The  causes  of  insanity  in  our  nation  are  so  interwoven 
with  the  warp  and  woof  of  violated  moral  law  that  no 
single  explanation  is  sufficient,  but  from  hospitals  and 
authorities  upon  the  subject  comes  abundant  and  con- 
clusive evidence  that  alcoholism  overshadows  all  other 
causes  in  the  destruction  of  human  minds.  It  produces 
insanity  in  three  ways:  First,  directly,  to  drinkers  as  a 
result  of  their  overindulgence  in  intoxicants;  second,  in- 
directly, through  heredity,  drinkers  transmit  to  their 
descendants  a  predisposition  to  insanity  and  neurotic  weak- 
ness; third,  indirectly,  as  a  cause  of  family,  social  and 
business  trouble,  it  often  is  a  contributory  cause  of 
insanity. 

Doctor  T.  S.  Clouston,  of  Edinburgh,  who  is 


26     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

one  of  the  highest  living  authorities  upon  unsound- 
ness  of  mind,  says:  "Alcohol  is  by  far  the  most 
common  and  the  most  characteristic  of  the  poisons 
introduced  from  without,  that  have  a  markedly 
hurtful  influence  on  the  brain  cells.  If  Socrates  or 
Marcus  Aurelius  or  Job  had  continuously  poisoned 
their  brains  with  London  gin  they  would  inevit- 
ably have  become  unsound  in  mind." 

Recent  annual  reports  from  forty  hospitals  in 
Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  California,  Delaware, 
Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  Indiana,  Massachusetts, 
Ohio,  Washington,  Wyoming,  Nevada,  Colorado, 
Maryland,  Iowa  and  Connecticut  show  that  in 
15,363  cases  of  insanity  where  the  causes  were 
known,  in  3,383,  or  22  per  cent.,  alcohol  was 
stated  as  the  single  direct  cause. 

Albert  Warren  Ferris,  M.D.,  Sheldon  T.  Viele 
and  William  T.  Parkhurst,  Lunacy  Commissioners 
of  New  York,  having  charge  of  thirteen  great 
hospitals  containing  over  thirty  thousand  insane 
people,  stated  that  27.5  per  cent,  of  admissions 
from  cities,  and  14.2  per  cent,  from  rural  dis- 
tricts are  due  to  alcohol,  and  that  it  is  an  etiologi- 
cal  factor  in  almost  40  per  cent,  of  all  admissions. 

The  leading  authorities  of  the  entire  world  are 
in  close  accord  in  tracing  insanity  to  alcoholism. 
Berkeley,  Spitzka  and  others  say:  "Of  all  the 
varied  causes  of  mental  infirmities,  heredity  and 
alcohol  are  the  most  important."  Kraepelin 
says:  "We  are  fully  acquainted  with  some  im- 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      27 

portant  and  widespread  causes  of  insanity.  Among 
these  stands  first  and  foremost  the  abuse  of  al- 
cohol" 

Mr.  Condit,  by  a  comparison  of  wet  and  dry 
States,  .and  groups  of  States,  shows  that  the  heavy 
drinking  States  furnish  by  far  the  largest  percent- 
age of  insanity.  "From  January  I,  1910,  to  July, 
1914,  the  insanity  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
New  Jersey  and  Massachusetts  increased  from 
64,000  to  over  88,000,  or  an  annual  increase  of 
6.12  per  cent.,  while  that  of  Kansas  and  Maine 
increased  from  4,170  to  4,583,  or  an  annual  in- 
crease of  1.52  per  cent.  New  York  had  31,000 
insane  in  1910  and  over  40,000  July  i,  1916, 
while  the  sixteen  States  which  were  without 
saloons  in  July,  1916,  had  only  32,000,  or  eight 
thousand  fewer  insane  people  than  the  State  of 
New  York  alone.  In  tracing  to  alcohol  the  de- 
struction of  the  intellect  we  remember  that  New 
York  State  has  31,000  dealers  in  intoxicating 
liquors,  more  than  all  the  fifteen  States  of  the 
South  and  Southwest.  Not  only  have  New  York 
and  New  Jersey  heavy  burdens  for  their  own 
taxpayers,  but  their  alcoholic  insane  and  neurotics 
are  taxing  the  people  of  other  commonwealths. 
Thus  the  latest  report  of  the  Ohio  hospitals  for 
the  insane  showed  that  in  1914  they  contained 
874  patients  who  were  natives  of  New  York,  193 
of  New  Jersey,  321  of  Massachusetts,  and  only 
32  of  Maine  and  28  of  Kansas." 


28      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

THE  SEWER  GANG 

I  here  call  to  the  witness  stand  a  young  man 
plucked  as  a  brand  from  the  burning. 

At  the  close  of  a  meeting  of  the  Men  and  For- 
ward Religious  Movement,  held  in  Carnegie 
Music  Hall  in  New  York,  I  was  coming  down  the 
steps  of  the  speakers'  platform  when  a  tall,  hand- 
some young  man  standing  near  me  asked:  "Were 
you  ever  at  Bloomington,  Illinois?" 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "I  was  pastor  of  the  First 
Methodist  Church  of  that  city  thirty  years  ago." 

"I  remember  you,"  he  said.  "I  am  Jim  Good- 
heart,  Jr." 

"Jim  Goodheart,  Jr.!  God  bless  you,  my  boy!" 
I  cried,  "I  could  hug  you  for  the  love  I  have  for 
your  father,  the  simple,  modest  man,  and  yet  the 
great  and  good  heart  his  name  indicates,  veteran 
of  the  Union  Army,  Sheriff  of  McLean  County, 
Illinois,  my  trusted  class  leader  and  strong  help 
in  our  revival." 

"I  remember  that  revival  well,"  he  said.  "It 
lasted  two  months  and  resulted  in  five  hundred 
conversions.  I  was  a  member  of  the  'Sewer 
Gang,'  the  'Dirty  Dozen,'  which  often  attended 
the  meetings  in  a  body  to  criticize,  make  fun,  and 
scoff.  Some  of  us  felt  a  strange  divine  influence, 
but  the  pull  of  the  devil  on  us  through  the  saloon 
was  too  much  for  us,  and  we  were  kept  away  from 
God  and  the  good.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  the 
tragical  fate  of  that  gang?" 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      29 

I  replied,  "I  never  heard  till  just  now  that 
there  was  such  a  gang." 

"The  story  of  their  fate  is  almost  too  horrible 
to  tell  or  believe/'  he  said.  "Every  one  of  the 
twelve  went  to  the  dogs  through  strong  drink,  I 
among  them.  I  came  back.  I  was  picked  up 
drunk  out  of  the  gutter  and  saved,  and  am  now 
the  superintendent  of  the  Sunshine  Rescue  Mis- 
sion of  Denver,  Colorado,  and  a  delegate  to  this 
laymen's  convention.  The  rest  never  reformed, 
and  all  the  eleven  came  to  a  bad  end." 

By  this  time  the  surging  crowd  had  pushed  us 
to  the  door.  Having  an  immediate  appointment 
elsewhere,  I  said,  "Their  tragical  story  shocks  me. 
When  you  get  back  home  write  me  briefly  some  of 
the  particulars  of  that  'Sewer  Gang'  and  the  ter- 
rible fate  of  which  you  speak." 

I  got  a  letter  from  Jim  Goodheart,  Jr.,  written 
from  the  Sunshine  Rescue  Mission  of  Denver, 
from  which  I  quote  verbatim: 

"The  group  of  persons  of  whom  I  spoke  to  you 
was  known  in  Bloomington  as  the  'Dirty  Dozen' 
or  'Sewer  Gang.'  It  had  a  president,  vice-presi- 
dent and  secretary,  and  was  composed  of  boys 
from  fourteen  to  nineteen  years  of  age,  desperate 
in  character.  Four  of  that  gang  of  twelve  are 
murderers,  and  are  serving  life  sentences  in  vari- 
ous penitentiaries.  One  is  in  an  insane  asylum,  a 
hopeless  wreck.  Five  are  dead,  either  having  been 
killed  in  saloon  brawls  or  in  railroad  accidents 


30     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

while  under  the  influence  of  liquor.  The  eleventh 
is  a  confirmed  drunkard  in  Bloomington,  and  I  am 
the  twelfth.  Ten  of  our  'Dirty  Dozen'  are  in  the 
ground  and  behind  bars." 

Recently  I  was  asked  by  the  National  Anti- 
Saloon  League  to  spend  a  week  speaking  in  the 
wet  and  dry  campaign  in  Bloomington  and  vicin- 
ity, and  the  wreck  of  the  "Sewer  Gang"  aroused 
my  conscience  and  stirred  my  zeal  in  the  fight 
against  the  saloon.  If  Bloomington  had  been  dry 
thirty  years  ago,  as  it  is  today,  it  is  likely  there 
would  have  been  no  "Sewer  Gang,"  and  that  those 
composing  it  would  have  been  in  the  church,  lead- 
ing useful,  honored  and  happy  lives.  The  four 
who  were  murderers  and  the  five  who  were  killed 
had  their  minds  bereft  of  reason  and  bodies 
poisoned  with  alcohol.  With  the  record  of  this 
wreck,  the  statement  of  the  liquor  editors  and  ora- 
tors that  alcohol  is  not  a  poison  but  a  food,  that 
it  does  not  shorten  life,  that  it  does  not  pollute 
character  or  damage  the  community,  that  it  is  not 
the  parent  of  lawlessness,  seems  an  impertinence 
and  a  mockery.  The  damage  it  does  is  destroy- 
ing the  saloon  as  much  as  anything  else.  The  ruin 
of  precious  boys'  lives  like  those  in  Bloomington 
is  doing  as  much  as  the  preachers  or  women  or 
professors  or  doctors  or  big  business  men  or  legis- 
latures to  dethrone  King  Alcohol. 

The  fate  of  the  Bloomington  boys  calls  to  mind 
the  Greek  fable  of  the  twelve  young  men  and 


ALCOHOL  AND  PSYCHOLOGY      31 

twelve  young  maidens  who  were  eaten  every  year 
by  the  serpent  king.  The  story  is  that  a  king  in 
his  travels  came  on  an  island  of  surpassing  beauty. 
He  lingered  at  a  lake  surrounded  with  flowers  of 
exquisite  hue  and  delicious  perfume.  Looking 
out,  he  saw  fierce  lions  ready  to  devour  him.  The 
lake  spoke  to  him  and  told  him  that  the  king  of 
the  island  was  a  serpent  with  seven  heads  and  that 
he  killed  all  that  set  foot  on  his  shores.  The  ser- 
pent came  from  his  palace  and  told  the  visitor  that 
he  would  spare  his  life  on  the  condition  that  he 
would  send  twelve  of  the  finest  young  men  and 
maidens  each  year  to  be  eaten  by  him,  threaten- 
ing that  if  the  toll  of  young  life  were  not  sent 
he  would  take  his  beasts  and  destroy  the  whole 
nation.  Twelve  of  the  most  beautiful  young  men 
and  women  volunteered  each  year  to  save  the 
nation.  And  in  a  ship  painted  black,  with  jet 
black  sails,  amidst  universal  lamentation,  went  the 
precious  lives  to  their  terrible  fate.  The  horse  of 
the  prince  told  him  the  sacrifice  made  for  so  many 
years  was  unnecessary  and  sent  him  to  a  woman  in 
a  cave  in  the  mountain,  who  told  him  how  to  kill 
the  serpent  king.  And  he  muffled  the  alarm  bells 
of  the  bed  chamber  with  cotton  and  took  the 
sword  which  hung  above  him,  with  which  he  killed 
others,  and  with  it  cut  off  the  seven  serpent  heads, 
and  the  toll  of  precious  life  was  ended.  Alcohol 
is  the  seven-headed  serpent  king  who  demands  a 
toll  for  death  of  not  only  twelve  young  men  and 


32      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

maidens  but  of  one  hundred  thousand  each  year. 
There  is  a  deep  conviction  in  the  land  that  the  toll 
is  unnecessary  and  that  the  thing  to  do  is  to  kill 
the  serpent  king.  This  is  being  done.  The 
"Sewer  Gangs/'  the  "Dirty  Dozens"  of  the  nation 
are  doing  their  part  in  dethroning  and  destroying 
King  Alcohol.  They  have  turned  on  the  serpent 
to  torture  him.  They  are  decapitating  him  with 
the  same  sword  with  which  he  slew  others. 


CHAPTER  II 
ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGV 

ALCOHOL  breaks  down  the  body  as  com- 
pletely as  it  shatter  the  mind.  Every 
organ  of  the  body,  the  lungs,  the  heart, 
the  liver,  the  stomach  and  kidneys,  is  affected  by 
this  drug.  Science  has  discovered  that  alcohol  is 
a  poison.  Over  three  hundred  years  ago  a  Swiss 
physician  and  chemist  of  ability  and  renown,  who 
called  himself  Paracelsus,  devoted  much  of  his 
time  in  his  laboratory  searching  for  the  elixir  of 
life,  that  should  turn  the  baser  metals  into  gold 
and  prolong  human  life.  He  loudly  proclaimed 
to  the  world  he  had  found  it;  it  was  our  alcohol. 
He  partook  of  it  freely  to  demonstrate  its  immor- 
tal influence  on  the  body  and  in  the  prime  of  life 
died  drunk  on  the  floor  of  a  tavern,  murdered  by 
what  he  thought  was  the  uelixir  of  life."  Ever 
since  then  the  world  has  been  making  the  mistake 
of  this  alchemist  and  suffering  the  consequences. 
Doctor  Haven  Emerson,  Commissioner  of 
Health  of  New  York  City,  deserves  the  gratitude 
of  the  whole  nation  for  his  courage  in  proclaiming 
alcohol  a  poison  which  breaks  down  all  the  organs 
of  the  body,  and  calling  upon  the  people  of  the 

33 


34  KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

city  and  nation  to  put  their  faces  against  it.  The 
scientific  and  medical  journals,  and  the  secular 
press  generally,  have  given  wide  publicity  to  his 
bulletins,  especially  those  warning  against  the 
damage  of  intoxicating  liquors.  I  take  the  privi- 
lege of  making  extensive  quotations  from  those 
bulletins. 

In  one  of  the  bulletins  I  found  a  slip  about  three 
inches  long  and  an  inch  and  a  half  wide,  in  black 
and  yellow,  with  yellow  letters  at  the  top,  "Health 
Book-Mark."  In  the  center  of  the  card  is  a  bottle 
of  whisky  representing  the  body  of  a  man  on  legs 
which  is  being  broken.  Underneath  the  picture 
and  at  the  bottom  of  the  book-mark  there  is 
printed: 

"Whisky  is  poison.  Save  your  body.  Save  your  brain, 
whisky  brings  you  death  and  pain." 

Under  this  in  small  gilt  letters  is :  "This  is  one 
of  a  series.  Collect  the  rest.  Department  of 
Health  of  the  City  of  New  York." 

In  one  of  these  bulletins  Doctor  Emerson  says : 

If  a  flagon  of  alcohol  were  offered  to  a  student  of 
pharmacology  to  test  as  a  curiosity,  and  he  applied  the 
standard  methods  of  physiological  experiment  to  it,  he 
could  but  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  was  dealing  with 
a  more  dangerous  chemical  than  any  now  available  in  the 
whole  range  of  materia  medica,  not  second  to  opium  or 
its  derivatives  as  a  destroyer  of  character,  a  disturber  of 


ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGY      35 

function  and  a  degenerator  of  tissue;  and  he  would  be 
quite  justified  in  advising  the  prohibition  of  its  manufac- 
ture and  use  as  a  beverage. 

Alcohol,  a  consistently  depressing,  habit-forming  drug, 
causes  characteristic,  easily  recognized  diseases  of  the 
brain,  nerves  and  special  senses.  Alcohol  causes  definite 
damage  to  the  heart,  kidneys,  blood  vessels  and  organs  of 
digestion,  especially  the  stomach  and  liver.  When  alcohol 
is  used  so  moderately  as  to  cause  none  of  the  special  dis- 
eases due  solely  to  its  effects,  it  is  known  to  damage  the 
unborn  babe,  the  nursing  child  and  the  grown  man  and 
woman  in  such  ways  as  to  render  them  peculiarly  suscep- 
tible to  the  infectious  and  communicable  diseases  to  which 
all  people  are  exposed. 

From  the  records  of  the  Department  of  Health  of  the 
City  of  New  York  it  appears  that  there  are  annually  at 
least  two  thousand  deaths  admittedly  due  to  the  excessive 
use  of  alcohol.  It  is  a  matter  of  record  that  eight  thou- 
sand cases  of  acute  alcoholism  are  treated  annually  at 
Bellevue  Hospital,  New  York.  Anybody  familiar  with 
general  medical  practice  or  the  service  in  the  general  medi- 
cal wards  in  any  hospital  in  the  large  cities  of  this  country, 
where  the  use  of  alcohol  is  common,  will  be  willing  to 
testify  to  the  very  considerable,  if  not  determining  role 
that  alcoholic  habit  plays  in  the  course  and  termination  of 
a  large  proportion  of  the  diseases  which  come  under  ob- 
servation. 

Is  this  not  sufficient  to  justify  the  use  of  such  powers  as 
the  Board  of  Health  has  to  prevent  the  use  of  alcohol  in 
the  community? 

Almost  all  lung  specialists  of  any  ability  or  note 
record  the  manifest  damage  alcohol  does  to  the 


36      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

lungs.  Doctor  Emerson's  bulletin,  "T.  B.  and  His 
Friend,  Mr.  Alcohol,"  shows  how  intimate  the  re- 
lationship is  between  tuberculosis  and  strong 
drink.  The  bulletin  follows : 

MR.  T.  B.  AND  HIS  FRIEND,  MR.  ALCOHOL 

Two  of  the  worst  enemies  you  and  I  have  are  tubercu- 
losis and  alcohol.  We  have  become  pretty  well  acquainted 
with  Mr.  T.  B.,  and  are  fighting  him  tooth  and  nail ;  but 
many  of  us  seem  not  to  realize  that  Mr.  Alcohol  is  an 
even  worse  enemy  than  tuberculosis.  So  we  go  on  drink- 
ing alcoholic  beverages,  and  because  we  don't  die  of  what 
the  doctor  calls  alcohol  poisoning,  we  think  they  have  done 
us  no  harm. 

The  trouble  is  that  most  of  us  need  to  have  a  skull 
and  crossbones  staring  us  in  the  face  before  we  think  that 
there  is  any  danger.  Tuberculosis  is  an  honest  enemy  who 
lets  us  know  when  he  has  arrived.  We  hear  a  dry,  hard 
cough  and  see  a  thin,  tired-looking  person  with  some  flush 
on  his  cheeks.  At  once  we  turn  away  in  horror  and  say 
"Look  out!  that's  T.  B."  But  with  alcohol  it  is  different. 
Disguised  by  the  good  taste  of  beer  or  by  the  bracing  feel- 
ing which  whisky  gives,  Mr.  Alcohol  easily  makes  friends, 
and  in  our  ignorance  we  believe  that  he  is  a  jolly  good 
sport  who  will  never  do  us  any  harm. 

But  this  foxy  old  poison,  alcohol,  is  a  friend  of  Mr. 
Tuberculosis,  a  sort  of  scout  who  goes  about  getting  things 
ready  for  the  germs  to  settle.  He  works  slowly,  doing  a 
little  damage  here  and  there,  and  then  when  the  victim 
catches  a  cold,  in  walks  Mr.  Tuberculosis  and  settles 
down  to  do  his  deadly  work,  and  nobody  ever  thinks  of 
blaming  Mr.  Alcohol,  who  is  really  behind  all  the  trouble. 


ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGY      37 

This  is  the  way  it  works:  Jim  drinks  a  little  beer,  not 
much,  say  four  glasses  in  the  course  of  the  day.  That's 
a  quart  of  beer.  In  the  quart  of  beer  are  two  ounces  of 
alcohol.  Jim's  body  can  stand  it  for  a  few  days,  but  after 
a  while  his  blood  begins  to  wear  out,  the  blood  vessels  in 
the  skin  and  in  the  lungs  become  weak,  and  the  tiny  cells 
that  make  up  the  body  get  less  nourishment  because  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  is  sluggish.  When  this  happens 
and  any  disease  germs  come  along,  there  is  less  power  to 
resist  them,  and  Mr.  Tuberculosis,  or  some  other  disease 
germ,  gets  in  his  work. 

At  the  Otisville  tuberculosis  sanatorium,  conducted  by 
the  New  York  City  Health  Department,  the  doctors  found 
that  the  patients  who  use  alcohol  have  much  less  chance 
of  getting  well.  Almost  all  of  those  who  do  not  drink 
improve  greatly  in  health,  but  only  about  a  quarter  of 
those  who  drink  improve.  Twice  as  many  drinkers  die 
as  those  who  leave  Mr.  Alcohol  alone.  This  shows  how 
close  friends  Mr.  Alcohol  and  Mr.  Tuberculosis  are;  they 
are  hard  enough  to  beat  one  at  a  time,  but  when  they  get 
together  they  are  a  deadly  pair. 

You  can  not  be  absolutely  sure  of  escaping  Mr.  Tu- 
berculosis, no  matter  how  hard  you  try,  but  you  can  make 
his  chance  of  getting  you  very  slim  by  leaving  all  alcohol 
alone. 

Doctor  Emerson,  at  a  meeting  at  the  Hotel 
Savoy  in  New  York  a  few  months  ago,  said:  "The 
death  rate  during  an  epidemic  is  always  higher 
among  alcoholics  than  among  temperate  men. 
The  user  of  alcohol  cannot  fight  off  an  infectious 
disease  because  his  power  of  resistance  has  been 


3  8      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

broken  down  by  the  alcohol.  This  is  especially 
true  of  pneumonia.  What  a  man  did  for  himself 
before  he  got  pneumonia  is  vastly  more  important 
than  what  the  doctor  does  for  him  after  he  gets 
it.  If  he  has  been  a  steady  user  of  liquor  his  sys- 
tem cannot  withstand  pneumonia.  Years  ago  it 
was  the  custom  to  give  pneumonia  patients  two 
ounces  of  alcohol  every  two  hours;  many  of  them 
died  under  this  treatment  who  would  have  been 
saved  today.  Today  no  alcohol  is  used,  and  the 
percentage  of  deaths  has  decreased  greatly." 

This  close  relationship  between  alcohol  and 
pneumonia  was  made  the  cause  of  a  bulletin  of 
warning  issued  by  the  United  States  Public  Health 
Service  on  March  5,  1917:  "The  United  States 
Public  Health  Service  brands  strong  drink  as  the 
most  efficient  ally  of  pneumonia.  The  liberal  and 
continuous  user  of  alcoholic  drinks  will  do  well  to 
heed  this  warning,  especially  at  this  season.  In- 
dulgence in  alcoholic  liquors  lowers  the  individual 
vitality,  and  the  man  who  drinks  is  peculiarly  sus- 
ceptible to  pneumonia. "  The  United  States  Pub- 
lic Health  Service  is  a  conservative  body.  It  does 
not  engage  in  alarmist  propaganda,  and  it  insists 
that  this  warning  is  a  fact  that  will  bear  endless 
repetition. 

Strong  drink  leaves  a  patient  in  poor  condition 
for  an  attack  of  typhoid  fever,  Bright's  or  any 
other  disease.  In  reference  to  the  intimacy  between 
alcohol  and  Bright's  disease,  Doctor  Emerson 


ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGY       39 

makes  this  reflection:  "You  don't  need  alcohol 
for  health;  you  don't  need  it  for  strength;  you 
don't  need  it  for  food;  you  don't  need  it  for  drink; 
it  never  does  you  any  good.  Then  why  drink?" 


ALCOHOL  AND  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION 

Scarcely  anything  has  been  more  marked  than 
the  change  of  attitude  toward  alcohol  on  the  part 
of  the  medical  profession.  Not  very  many  years 
back  almost  all  doctors  prescribed  liquors  of  one 
kind  or  another  for  nearly  every  ailment  that  flesh 
is  heir  to.  But  now,  since  science  has  proven  al- 
cohol, even  in  small  quantities,  to  be  a  poison, 
very  many  physicians  will  not  prescribe  it  at  all, 
and  almost  all  of  them  do  so  with  extreme  caution. 

Some  time  ago,  at  a  convention  in  London,  at 
which  10,000  physicians  gathered  from  all  nations 
of  the  world,  alcohol  as  a  medicine  was  con- 
demned, and  the  president  of  the  convention  made 
a  most  powerful  address,  calling  upon  the  physi- 
cians of  the  world  to  take  a  place  in  the  forefront 
of  the  battle  against  intoxicants,  the  deadly  enemy 
of  body  and  mind. 

The  complete  revolution  of  the  medical  profes- 
sion of  the  United  States  on  the  use  of  alcohol  as 
a  beverage  or  medicine  is  seen  at  the  annual  meet- 
ing of  the  American  Medical  Association  recently 
held  in  New  York  City.  Doctor  Frank  Billings  of 
Chicago,  the  chairman  of  the  Council  on  Health 


40     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

and  Public  Instruction,  introduced  a  resolution, 
unanimously  passed  by  the  Council,  in  which  was 
expressed  the  opinion  that  alcohol  had  no  drug 
value,  either  as  a  tonic  or  a  stimulant ;  that  it  had 
no  value  in  the  treatment  of  disease,  and  that  its 
only  legitimate  use  in  medicine  was  as  a  preserva- 
tive and  in  the  preparation  of  certain  pharmaceu- 
tical products. 

Dr.  Charles  H.  Mayo  of  Rochester,  Minne- 
sota, the  world-famous  surgeon,  in  his  address  on 
taking  the  chair  as  the  president  of  the  American 
Medical  Association  strongly  advocated  Prohibi- 
tion for  the  nation,  not  only  for  the  war,  but  for 
peace  as  well.  The  1,500  delegates  to  the  Na- 
tional Convention  of  the  Association  in  the  Wal- 
dorf-Astoria ballroom  cheered  their  approval  of 
his  demand  that  the  doctors  form  a  fighting 
phalanx  for  Prohibition.  Doctor  Mayo  urged 
that  the  doctor's  prescription  of  intoxicating  liquor 
be  thrown  into  the  wastebasket.  Medicine,  he 
said,  no  longer  needed  alcohol,  for  it  had  some- 
thing better. 

If  alcohol  is  the  poison  that  science  says  it  is 
and  the  medical  profession  believes  it  is,  then  we 
have  a  perfect  right  to  expect  the  shortening  of 
life  on  the  part  of  those  who  use  intoxicating 
drink.  In  searching  for  information  upon  the  sub- 
ject, I  visited  the  actuaries  of  several  of  the  lead- 
ing life  insurance  companies  of  America,  and 
while  they  differed  somewhat  in  their  figures  as 


ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGY       41 

to  the  number  of  years  less  that  the  drinker  has, 
all  agreed  that  his  life  is  shortened. 

Dr.  Arthur  Hunter,  the  Actuary  of  the  New 
York  Life  Insurance  Company,  himself  the  best 
authority  in  the  nation  on  the  subject  of  the  rela- 
tion of  drink  to  mortality,  communicated  with 
forty-three  other  life  insurance  companies,  on  the 
subject,  and  asserts  that  seven  American  com- 
panies have  proved  that  abstainers  have  from  10 
to  30  per  cent,  lower  mortality  than  non-ab- 
stainers. 

ALCOHOL  POISONS  LIFE  AT  ITS  FOUNTAIN 

One  of  the  most  tragical  features  of  rum's 
ravages  is  its  deadly  attack  on  the  origins  of  life. 
It  hunts  life  at  its  very  foundation  and  kills  the 
babe  before  it  opens  its  eyes  on  this  world  or  so 
disables  it  physically  and  mentally  as  to  leave  it  a 
poor  weakling,  with  pain,  disappointment,  failure 
and  early  death  as  the  result. 

It  is  only  within  the  last  few  years  that  science 
has  discovered  this  most  enormously  important 
fact  which  gives  falsehood  to  the  statement  that 
alcohol  is  a  food  and  proves  it  to  be  a  poison  of 
the  most  insidious  and  deadly  form. 

DR.  STOCKARD'S  EXPERIMENTS 

Experiments  with  the  lower  animals  have 
proven  conclusively  that  alcohol  is  transmitted  as 


42      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

a  virulent  poison  to  their  offspring.  Perhaps  no 
one  in  the  two  hemispheres  is  higher  authority  on 
the  poisonous  effect  of  alcohol  upon  animal  off- 
spring than  Professor  C.  R.  Stockard  of  Cornell 
University  Medical  College,  in  New  York  City. 
He  has  been  studying  for  a  number  of  years  the 
effects  of  alcohol  on  the  growth  and  development 
of  different  animals,  as  well  as  the  influence  of 
alcohol  on  the  descendants,  that  is,  the  children, 
grandchildren,  etc.,  of  alcoholized  animals.  The 
results  of  Doctor  Stockard's  experiments  have 
been  published  in  different  medical  and  scientific 
journals  of  this  country  and  Europe,  and  I  shall 
give  here  the  main  result  as  gathered  from  these 
various  scientific  articles. 

His  first  work  showed  that  when  the  eggs  of 
a  fish  were  developing  normally  in  salt  water,  a 
little  alcohol  added  to  the  water  would  cause  the 
young  fish  to  be  deformed  and  usually  unable  to 
live.  When  chicken  eggs  were  put  in  a  dish  filled 
with  alcoholic  fumes  the  vapors  would  soak 
through  the  shell,  and  the  chickens  that  developed 
in  these  eggs  were  often  deformed  or  died  in  the 
shell  before  hatching.  Thus,  the  effect  of  alcohol 
on  the  early  developing  body  poisoned  it  in  such 
a  way  as  to  spoil  its  regular  development. 

The  most  important  studies  by  Doctor  Stock- 
ard have  shown  the  effect  of  alcohol  on  the  chil- 
dren and  grandchildren  of  animals  that  were  given 
regular  doses  of  alcohol  for  long  periods  of  time. 


ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGY       43 

Guinea  pigs  are  used  in  this  experiment,  and  have 
taken  enough  alcohol  to  make  them  almost  drunk 
six  days  a  week  during  several  years.  Inhaling 
alcoholic  fumes  until  intoxicated  does  not  seem  to 
injure  the  body  of  the  guinea  pig.  The  animals 
remain  in  good  health  and  live  long,  yet  if  the 
same  alcohol  is  given  the  guinea  pig  in  its  stomach, 
the  results  are  very  injurious,  and  the  animal  does 
not  survive  the  treatment  very  long.  Unfor- 
tunately, man  takes  his  alcohol  through  the 
stomach,  and  gets  more  injurious  effects  on  diges- 
tion than  the  guinea  pigs  get  by  inhaling  alcoholic 
fumes.  But  even  inhaling  the  fumes  does  injure 
the  guinea  pigs,  as  may  be  seen  by  studying  the 
records  of  the  young  born  from  alcoholic  parents. 

After  studying  these  animals  for  six  years,  Doc- 
tor Stockard  has  published  facts  to  warrant  the 
following  conclusions  from  the  records  of  six 
hundred  and  eighty-two  offspring  produced  by 
five  hundred  and  seventy-one  matings : 

One  hundred  and  sixty-four  matings  of  alcohol- 
ized mammals,  in  which  either  the  father,  mother 
or  both  were  alcoholic,  gave  64,  or  almost  40  per 
cent.,  negative  results  or  early  abortions,  while 
only  25  per  cent,  of  the  control  matings  failed  to 
give  full-term  litters.  Of  the  100  full-term  litters 
from  alcoholic  parents  18  per  cent,  contained 
stillborn  young,  and  only  50  per  cent,  of  all  the 
matings  resulted  in  living  litters.  Forty-six  per 
cent,  of  the  individuals  in  the  litters  of  living 


44     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

young  died  very  soon  after  birth.  In  contrast  to 
this  record  73  per  cent,  of  the  90  control  matings 
gave  living  litters,  and  84  per  cent,  of  the  young 
in  these  litters  survived  as  normal,  healthy 
animals. 

The  mating  records  of  the  descendants  of  the 
alcoholized  guinea  pigs,  although  they  themselves 
were  not  treated  with  alcohol,  compare  in  some 
respects  even  more  unfavorably  with  the  control 
records  than  the  above  figures  from  the  directly 
alcoholized  animals. 

Of  194  matings  of  the  children  from  alcoholics 
in  various  combinations  55  have  resulted  in  nega- 
tive results  or  early  abortions;  18  stillborn  litters 
of  41  young  occurred,  and  17  per  cent,  of  these 
stillborn  young  were  deformed.  One  hundred 
and  twenty-one  living  litters  contained  199  young, 
but  94  of  these  died  within  a  few  days,  and  al- 
most 15  per  cent,  of  them  were  deformed,  while 
105  survived  and  7  of  these  showed  eye  deformi- 
ties. Among  126  full-term  control  young  of  the 
same  stock  not  one  has  been  deformed. 

The  records  of  the  matings  of  the  grandchil- 
dren of  alcoholic  grandparents  are  still  worse, 
higher  mortality  and  more  pronounced  deformi- 
ties, while  even  the  few  great-grandchildren 
which  have  survived  are  generally  weak  and  in 
many  instances  appear  to  be  quite  sterile,  even 
though  paired  with  vigorous,  prolific,  normal 
mates. 


ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGY      45 

The  structural  defects  shown  by  the  descendants 
of  alcoholized  animals  seem  to  be  confined  chiefly 
to  the  central  nervous  system  and  special  sense 
organs.  Many  of  the  young  animals  show 
tremors  or  paralysis  in  the  hind  legs,  fore  legs  or 
both  legs  of  one  side.  Eye  defects  are  very  com- 
mon; some  have  only  one  good  eye,  and  finally 
several  cases  of  complete  absence  of  eyes  have  oc- 
curred, the  entire  eyeballs  and  optic  nerves  being 
absent. 

Inbreeding  tends  to  emphasize  the  alcoholic  ef- 
fects. This  is  probably  due  to  related  animals 
responding  to  the  treatment  in  closely  similar 
ways  on  account  of  the  similarity  of  their  consti- 
tutions. Inbreeding,  as  such,  may  be  harmful. 
But  inbreeding  added  to  the  alcohol  effects  pro- 
duces a  much  worse  condition  in  the  offspring 
than  either  inbreeding  or  alcoholism  alone  could 
do. 

Dr.  Stockard  showed  me  his  collection  of  400 
guinea  pigs,  and  when  I  asked  to  see  the  defectives 
he  said,  "Oh,  we  cannot  keep  them,  they  all  die.'* 

These  experiments  of  Doctor  Stockard  cer- 
tainly prove  beyond  doubt  that  alcohol  taken  by 
the  parents  causes  a  poor  quality  of  offspring,  and 
that  the  injury  is  handed  on  even  to  the  third  and 
fourth  generation,  in  guinea  pigs  at  least.  There 
are  many  things  in  the  history  of  human  families 
which  give  one  some  justification  in  believing  that 
the  horrible  effects  which  Professor  Stockard  has 


46     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

shown  experimentally  on  guinea  pigs  may  also 
follow  in  families  of  drunkards — either  man  or 
woman.  In  fact,  the  reliable  men  of  science  have 
discovered  positively  that  the  children  of  alcohol- 
ized parents  are  fewer  than  those  who  do  not 
touch  drink,  and  those  few  children  are  liable  to 
be  weak  and  defective  in  body  and  in  mind. 

A  pamphlet  printed  by  the  Scientific  Temper- 
ance Federation,  edited  by  E.  L.  Transeau  and 
C.  F.  Stoddard,  says  among  other  things :  "  'Every 
ten  seconds  a  baby  dies'  is  an  estimate  for  the 
whole  world.  In  the  United  States  alone  not  far 
from  250,000  babies  die  each  year.  Among  the 
causes  of  this  enormous  loss  of  child  life  is  the 
use  of  alcohol  by  parents  who  do  not  know  or 
realize  the  possible  results  to  their  little  children, 
as  it  is  only  within  a  few  years  that  the  facts  of 
drink  have  been  so  carefully  studied." 

Dr.  Sullivan  found  that  120  drinking  mothers 
of  600  children  lost  more  than  half  of  them  be- 
fore the  children  were  two  years  of  age  (55.8 
per  cent.).  When  he  compared  21  drinking 
mothers  with  28  mothers  who  were  their  relatives 
but  were  sober  and  had  sober  husbands,  he  found 
that  the  sober  woman  lost  less  than  a  quarter  of 
their  children. 

Dr.  Laitinen,  in  Finland,  made  inquiries  about 
the  deaths  of  children  in  3,61 1  families  which  had 
had  17,394  children.  Where  the  parents  were 
abstainers  only  13  per  cent,  of  their  children  had 


ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGY      4? 

died.  The  parents  who  were  "moderate" 
drinkers  lost  23  per  cent.,  and  the  heavy  drinkers 
lost  32  per  cent. 

Aside  from  the  blight  of  child  life  by  alcohol 
through  heredity,  there  is  an  additional  peril  to 
babies  born  into  the  drinker's  home.    The  parents 
that  drink,  often  do  not  have  enough  money  left 
over  after  their  drink  bill  has  been  paid  to  buy 
sufficient  food  to  nourish  the  children  properly, 
or  to  provide  the  clothing  they  need;   and  the 
mother  who  has  to  go  to  work  to  support  the 
family  the  drunken  father  neglects,  or  who  stays 
at  home  and  drinks,  does  not  give  the  children  the 
proper  nursing  and  adds  to  the  slaughter  of  the 
innocents.    When  parents  realize  this  tremendous 
fact  which  science  has  demonstrated,  that  if  they 
drink  even  in  moderation  their  children  are  liable 
to  be  weaklings  in  body  or  mind  with  a  shortened 
life  expectancy,  they  will  cut  out  champagne  from 
the  sideboard  of  wealth  and  the  beer  mug  from 
the    poor    man's    cottage.      Many    are    already 
recognizing  this  fact  and  are  giving  up  the  per- 
sonal use  of  intoxicants  in  behalf  of  the  genera- 
tions that  are  to  follow  them.     Babies  have  a 
right  to  come  into  this  world  without  such  a  hand- 
icap, and  to  have  a  fair  chance  for  life  after  they 
have  entered  it. 

Since  science  has  proven  the  damage  drink  does 
to  the  brain  and  mental  processes,  since  it  has 
shown  what  a  poison  it  is  to  the  body,  we  should 


48      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

expect  to  find  inefficiency  in  the  drinker.  This  is 
precisely  the  fact.  In  all  departments  of  human 
endeavor,  the  one  who  uses  intoxicants  even  in  so- 
called  moderate  quantities  is  reduced  in  his  ef- 
ficiency and  is  discounted  in  his  service.  The 
athlete  has  recognized  this  damage  to  the  body. 

ABSTINENCE  IN  THE  SPORTS 

In  the  realm  of  sport,  where  men  play  games 
with  each  other,  abstinence  is  required  for  effi- 
ciency and  success.  The  beer-mug  or  wine-glass 
befuddle  the  mind  of  the  athlete  so  that  he  cannot 
see  keenly  or  act  quickly  or  strongly.  American 
baseball  is  about  as  clean  a  game  as  there  is  in 
the  world.  The  whole  nation  is  deeply  interested 
in  it.  From  Maine  to  San  Francisco  the  people 
gather  at  the  bulletin  boards  and  join  the  fun  of 
the  game  as  each  play  is  recorded  over  the  wire. 
I  know  a  farmer  boy  who  gets  up  very  early,  not 
to  hoe  the  patch  before  breakfast,  nor  even  to  get 
his  breakfast,  but  to  get  the  morning  paper  with 
the  report  of  the  ball  game  the  evening  before. 
I  know  a  missionary  in  Japan  who  takes  a  New 
York  City  paper  and  reads  with  enthusiasm  the 
baseball  news  each  day,  and  though  nearly  a 
month  has  elapsed  since  the  time  the  season  has 
closed  and  the  championship  declared,  he  finishes 
his  perusal  of  the  account  with  as  deep  interest 
as  the  fans  on  their  benches.  One  reason  why  the 


ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGY       49 

game  is  so  clean  is  that  it  is  free  from  alcohol. 
The  leading  baseball  clubs  of  the  country  are 
about  as  good  temperance  societies  as  can  be 
found.  The  greatest  baseball  players  in  America 
in  the  past  as  well  as  the  present  have  been  total 
abstainers  from  drink.  They  have  been  eloquent 
advocates  of  temperance  by  precept  as  well  as 
by  example. 

Ty  Cobb  does  not  need  to  be  introduced  to  the 
American  public.  He  is  known  by  the  professor 
in  the  college  and  by  the  cowboy  in  the  ranch,  by 
the  governors  of  States  and  by  the  newsboys  and 
bootblacks  on  the  street  corner.  Known  to  them 
not  because  he  plays  ball,  but  because  he  is  the 
champion  ball  player  of  the  country,  if  not  of  the 
world.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  I  sought  an 
interview  with  him  to  get  first-off  facts  with  refer- 
ence to  the  rule  of  abstinence  from  drink  in  base- 
ball. 

TY   COBB    ON   ABSTINENCE 

Mr.  Cobb  had  just  come  in  from  a  long  rail- 
road ride  and  was  taking  breakfast  in  his  hotel 
room.  The  table  had  plenty  of  good  food  upon 
it,  but  no  bottle. 

I  said,  "Mr.  Cobb,  your  reputation  as  the 
champion  baseball  player  in  America  is  not  much 
better  known  than  is  your  attitude  on  the  drink 
question.  Why  do  you  cut  intoxicants  out  of  your 
bill  of  fare?" 


50      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

"Because  they  do  not  go  at  all  with  baseball," 
said  Ty  Cobb.  uNo  man  who  expects  to  succeed 
at  the  game  should  ever  think  of  taking  strong 
drink.  We  are  all  interested  in  the  question,  for 
if  one  man  lets  down  in  his  efficiency  we  all  suffer 
a  handicap.  It  is  a  rule  among  baseball  men  to 
let  drink  alone.  I  don't  believe  one  in  fifty  base- 
ball players  of  any  clubs  of  importance  in  the 
country  attempts  to  mix  drink  with  his  ball- 
playing." 

"Does  your  club  have  a  rule  on  this  subject?" 
I  asked. 

"No,"  he  said.  "The  only  rule  is  one  of  effi- 
ciency. The  minute  a  man  loses  his  efficiency  even 
in  a  small  degree,  he  commences  to  drop  out,  and 
it  has  been  learned  unerringly  that  those  who 
drink  do  lose  their  efficiency,  drop  out  of  the 
game,  either  of  their  own  accord,  or  are  bounced 
by  the  management." 

Ty  Cobb  is  the  peerless  batter.  When  the 
pitcher  throws  him  the  ball,  eight  of  the  nine 
persons  of  the  opposing  club  set  their  whole  atten- 
tion upon  stopping  that  ball.  More  than  any 
other  player  in  the  world,  Cobb  has  managed  to 
send  that  ball  into  the  field  where  his  enemy  did 
not  want  it  and  where  it  would  with  greatest  dif- 
ficulty be  stopped.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
him,  with  a  drink  of  beer  in  him,  to  discriminate 
thus  keenly,  and  secure  the  marks  to  his  credit  as 
a  batter.  Cobb  is  the  champion  base-stealer. 


ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGY       51 

The  deep,  downright  cunning,  with  the  almost 
perfect  agility  and  sustaining  physical  force  that 
gives  him  his  success  in  the  running  of  bases, 
would  be  impossible  if  he  used  liquor  even  in  a 
moderate  degree.  The  hand  of  sport,  that  of  Ty 
Cobb  and  his  crowd  of  baseball  players,  and  that 
of  other  athletes  is  inflicting  an  incalculable  dam- 
age upon  the  liquor  traffic. 

JESS  WILLARD,  COLD  WATER  CHAMPION 

Even  prize-fighters  find  that  they  are  stronger 
and  can  fight  better  when  they  leave  liquor  alone. 
I  called  on  Jess  Willard,  the  champion  heavy- 
weight prize-fighter  of  the  world.  He  looked 
least  like  a  pugilist.  To  be  sure,  he  was  very  tall 
and  very  strong  in  appearance,  but  he  had  a  fine 
and  you  might  say  a  handsome  face,  which  had  no 
finger-marks  of  the  calling  in  which  he  was  en- 
gaged. 

uMr.  Willard,"  I  said,  "y°u  are  known 
throughout  America  as  a  temperance  man  by  your 
open  and  avowed  statements  that  drink  is  an  in- 
jury to  the  pugilist  and  that  intoxicants  are  en- 
tirely cut  out  of  your  personal  program.  I  noticed 
in  the  paper  that  you  said,  after  your  fight  with 
Jack  Johnson,  that  he  damaged  his  chance  very 
greatly  in  the  contest  because  he  used  so  much 
liquor,  and  that  you  attributed  much  of  your  suc- 
cess in  it  to  the  fact  that  liquor  did  not  dull  your 


52      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

brain  nor  weaken  your  muscle.  I  consider  you  a 
first-class  witness  as  to  the  damage  of  alcohol  to 
physical  efficiency." 

uWhat  you  say  about  my  habits  and  statement 
is  true,"  Mr.  Willard  replied,  "but  I  refer  you 
on  the  subject  to  my  partner,  Tom  Jones,  who 
will  give  you  for  me  whatever  information  you 


want." 


Tom  Jones  said:  "If  Jess  Willard  had  his 
way,  there  would  not  be  a  drop  of  liquor  made  or 
sold  in  America.  He  says  it  does  no  good  to 
any  one  and  least  of  all  to  the  pugilist.  He  does 
not  condemn  or  even  criticise  people  who  use 
liquor  or  sell  it,  but  he  is  particular  himself  in 
his  own  personal  habits.  He  cares  nothing  at  all 
for  any  of  the  temptations  of  the  Great  White 
Way.  You  will  not  find  him  drinking  in  carousing 
places  at  night.  He  keeps  splendid  hours.  After 
the  fight  next  week  he  will  not  take  a  glass  of 
drink  nor  join  in  any  convivial  celebration  of  any 
kind  with  friends,  but  will  simply  take  the  train 
the  very  same  night  and  go  home  to  his  wife  and 
family  in  Chicago.  He  is  an  ideal  family  man,  as 
he  is  an  example  of  temperance." 

Willard  paid  this  tribute  to  cold  water:  "The 
old  aqua  has  a  great  booster  in  me,  for  it  has 
more  reviving  power,  as  far  as  I  can  figure,  than 
all  the  other  beverages  put  together.  Water  in- 
side and  water  outside  is  a  combination  that  stands 
without  an  equal." 


ALCOHOL  AND  PHYSIOLOGY      53 

James  J.  Corbett,  a  pugilist  himself,  in  a  min- 
ute description  of  Willard  after  one  of  his  fights, 
names  his  abstinence  from  drink  as  one  of  his 
strongest  points. 

It  is  claimed  that  Jess  Willard  has  laid  away 
between  four  and  five  hundred  thousand  dollars 
in  cold  cash  in  the  last  few  years.  Does  anyone 
imagine  that  if  he  had  used  liquor,  as  some  pugil- 
ists have  done,  he  would  have  four  or  five  hundred 
cents  left  over  now,  even  if  he  could  have  secured 
the  championship  ? 

Herbert  Kaufman  has  thus  described  a  pugil- 
istic champion  who,  having  mastered  others  in 
the  ring,  was  conquered  by  rum:  uHe  lurched 
into  Jack's  at  midnight,  stumbled  along  the  lane 
of  crowded  tables  and  sprawled  into  a  seat — a 
sodden,  glassy-eyed,  pulpy  parody  of  the  superb 
creature  whose  clean  fists  once  held  a  champion- 
ship. Then  he  was  without  a  peer — invincible. 
Man  after  man,  the  shrewdest  pugilists  of  Amer- 
ica vainly  contested  with  him  for  the  title.  The 
pride  of  England's  rings  and  the  best  talent  of 
Australia  fell  before  his  incomparable  science. 
His  was  the  keen  vital  strength  that  surges  from 
uncontaminated  sources.  In  a  day  of  brawling 
brutes  he  stood  apart,  a  class  unto  himself.  Then 
suddenly  he  rotted  at  the  core.  In  old  John  Bar- 
leycorn he  met  his  master.  What  no  arena  ever 
saw,  the  pot-house  and  the  sample  room  soon  be- 
held— 'the  best  of  'em  alP  reeling  and  rocking 


54     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

in  defeat.  It's  a  sure  bet  when  the  battler  meets 
the  bottler." 

Boxing  within  limits  is  a  manly  sport.  I  never 
saw  a  prize  fight.  I  never  failed  to  condemn  it 
as  demoralizing,  and  yet  I  could  not  ask  any 
stronger  testimony  to  the  value  of  abstinence  to 
bodily  strength  than  that  of  Willard,  the  pugilist. 
Jess  Willard  has  knocked  John  Barleycorn  down 
in  the  ring  and  has  thrown  him  over  the  ropes. 

In  the  basal  realm  of  temporal  support,  in  call- 
ings to  make  a  living,  liquor  is  such  a  disturbance 
and  hindrance  and  damage  that  the  business  world 
protests  against  it. 


CHAPTER  III 
ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE 

FROM  the  earliest  times  the  literature  of  all 
nations  has  been  full  of  praises  of  the 
joy  and  blessing  of  wine.    The  student  of 
ancient  classics  finds  constant  references  to  them  in 
the  plays  written,  the  songs  sung  and  the  amuse- 
ments  enjoyed.     The   bacchanalian   revels   were 
counted  only  as  an  abuse  of  a  custom  mentally 
valuable,    and  they  were   often   apologized   for 
rather  than  condemned. 

OLIVER   GOLDSMITH 

English  literature  took  for  granted  as  true  the 
mistaken  verdict  of  science  that  alcohol  is  not  only 
friendly,  but  necessary,  to  the  highest  mental  ex- 
ercise. This  thought  is  thus  expressed  by  Oliver 
Goldsmith  in  "She  Stoops  to  Conquer": 

"Let  schoolmasters  puzzle  their  brains 
With  grammar  and  nonsense  and  learning, 
Good  liquor,  I  stoutly  maintain, 
Gives  genius  a  better  discerning." 

Certainly  that  is  the  idea  he  had  when,  as  the 
son  of  a  poor  Irish  preacher,  he  entered  Trinity 

55 


56  KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

College  in  Dublin  at  seventeen.  His  genius  won 
him  a  prize  of  six  dollars,  and  to  ugive  it  a  better 
discerning"  he  spent  it  in  buying  some  "good 
liquor"  and  giving  a  supper  and  dance  in  his 
college  room  and  causing  such  a  hilarious  time 
that  his  tutor  rushed  into  the  room,  gave  him  a 
good  thrashing  and  kicked  his  guests  out  of  doors. 
Disgraced,  the  student  resolved  to  leave  college 
and  had  to  sell  his  books  and  some  clothes  for 
money  to  get  out  of  town.  He  loafed  around 
Dublin  with  convivial  companions  till  all  of  his 
money  was  gone  except  enough  to  take  him  to 
Cork.  He  managed  to  get  back  into  college  again 
and  gained  his  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  a  year 
or  so  after  the  regular  time.  Oliver,  the  young 
graduate  of  twenty-one,  the  son  of  an  Irish  minis- 
ter and  brother  of  a  curate,  decided  to  enter  the 
ministry.  He  began  his  two  years  of  probation. 
He  read  everything  else  but  theology  and  made 
himself  conspicuous  among  the  drinking  revelers 
at  the  "little  inn  of  Ballymahon."  When  he  came 
up  for  ordination  he  was  rejected,  the  good  liquor 
having  failed  to  give  his  genius  the  kind  of  dis- 
cernment required. 

He  tutored  a  year  in  a  private  family  and 
saved  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  and  a  horse 
on  which  he  rode  to  Cork.  There  he  sold  his  horse 
and  booked  a  passage  for  America.  He  squand- 
ered his  money  in  his  debauches,  and  while  he  was 
in  a  carousal  with  gay  companions  at  a  country 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      57 

inn,  the  ship  on  which  he  had  engaged  to  sail 
went  off  without  him.  With  the  thirteen  dollars 
he  had  left  he  bought  a  little  pony  and  rode  to 
the  home  of  his  mother,  where  he  was  welcomed 
as  a  returned  prodigal.  His  uncle,  who  had  great 
faith  in  his  ability,  and  who  loved  him,  set  him 
on  his  feet  again  with  a  gift  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars  and  started  him  off  to  London  to 
study  law.  He  got  as  far  as  Dublin,  when  drink 
tempted  him  to  stop  off  there  and  have  one  last 
farewell  "rounder"  with  his  old  companions.  They 
drank  up  every  penny  of  his  money  and  left  him 
stranded  again.  Some  friends  put  up  money  and 
sent  him  to  the  Medical  Department  of  the  Edin- 
burgh University,  where  he  studied  two  years,  still 
clinging  to  his  convivial  habits  and  companions. 
He  went  to  Paris  to  perfect  his  medical  studies 
and  was  reduced  to  such  a  financial  strait  that  he 
drifted  out  on  the  road,  a  traveling  minstrel,  with 
his  flute  and  songs  among  the  peasantry  for  a  sup- 
port. He  found  himself  in  London  little  better 
than  a  tramp,  glad  at  times  to  lodge  among  the 
"beggars  of  Ax  Lane,"  as  he  says,  "without 
friends,  recommendations,  money  or  influence." 
And  he  was  now  twenty-eight  years  of  age. 

He  drifted  into  the  field  of  literature,  for  which 
his  genius  had  so  eminently  fitted  him.  He  wrote 
for  the  magazines.  His  first  important  produc- 
tion, "An  Inquiry  into  the  State  of  Polite  Litera- 
ture," caught  the  eye  of  Samuel  Johnson,  the 


58      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

king  among  men  of  letters.  Goldsmith  continued 
his  drinking  habits,  and  was  in  dire  distress  of 
poverty.  Knowing  Johnson's  estimate  of  him,  he 
wrote  a  note  to  him,  frankly  stating  his  condition 
and  begging  him  to  hasten  to  his  rescue.  Johnson 
sent  him  a  guinea,  and  followed  it  soon  with  a 
visit  to  his  cheap  quarters.  He  found  Goldsmith 
quarreling  with  his  landlady  because  she  had  had 
him  arrested  for  the  non-payment  of  rent.  He 
had  not  given  the  woman  a  penny  of  the  guinea 
sent,  but  he  had  spent  a  part  of  it  for  wine,  a  bot- 
tle of  which  was  standing  on  the  table.  Johnson 
calmed  the  woman,  told  her  she  would  get  her 
money,  and  talked  very  plainly  to  the  young 
author.  Goldsmith  came  to  himself,  determined 
to  abandon  his  convivial  habits,  and  get  down 
seriously  to  the  work  of  life.  Johnson's  splendid 
character,  strong  will  and  sympathy  (for  he  him- 
self had  a  hard  scuffle  with  poverty  in  his  early 
history)  were  prevailing  influences  to  better 
things  in  the  young  poet's  history.  He  wrote  the 
"Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  for  which  he  got  three 
hundred  dollars,  with  which  he  cleaned  up  his 
debts.  Afterwards  he  wrote  "The  Traveler," 
whose  serene  beauty,  easy  grace,  sound  good 
sense,  magic  numbers  and  occasional  elevation 
captivated  critics  and  publishers  and  secured  for 
him  a  place  in  the  permanent  literature  of  the 
world,  for  which  manuscript  he  received  the  piti- 
ful sum  of  onq  hundred  dollars.  He  wrote  other 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      59 

splendid  books,  died  at  the  early  age  of  forty-six, 
and  a  monument  was  placed  for  him  in  Westmin- 
ster Abbey. 

Goldsmith  gave  up  his  convivial  habits  when 
he  came  to  responsibility  and  fame,  but  he,  like 
the  rest  in  those  days,  the  best  of  them,  continued 
what  would  be  called  the  moderate  but  constant 
use  of  intoxicants. 

What  did  alcohol  do  for  Goldsmith?  It  did 
not  destroy  him,  but  it  grievously  injured  him.  To 
be  sure,  he  was  of  a  wandering  disposition,  and 
was  shiftless  in  his  habits.  But  what  else  would 
a  young  man  be  but  wandering  and  thriftless  who 
did  little  else  but  drink  liquor  to  excess  up  to  the 
time  he  was  a  man  thirty  years  of  age?  It  was 
a  miracle  he  came  to  himself,  instead  of  going  to 
the  graveyard,  whither  he  was  tending.  If  he 
had  let  drink  alone  he  might  have  come  to  him- 
self at  twenty-one,  splendidly  equipped,  and  taken 
his  rightful  place  as  a  prince  in  the  world  of 
letters,  instead  of  staggering  from  teaching  to 
theology,  to  law,  to  medicine,  as  a  drunken  man, 
a  mockery  to  his  genius  and  a  parody  on  a  human 
life,  and  he  would  have  sung  songs  as  sweet  or 
sweeter,  and  would  probably  have  sung  them 
twenty  or  thirty  years  longer,  holding  the  lyre  at 
sixty  or  seventy  instead  of  laying  it  down  at  forty- 
six.  For  the  many  years  of  hard  drinking  had 
left  their  scars  on  the  vital  organs  of  the  body  as 
distinctly  as  the  marks  the  smallpox  left  in  his 


60     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

face  when  he  was  a  boy,  and  cut  short  a  life  of 
glory  and  usefulness  just  fairly  begun. 

These  words  are  not  intended  as  a  harsh  criti- 
cism of  Goldsmith's  weakness;  they  are  written 
with  the  highest  appreciation  of  the  admirable 
qualities  he  possessed  as  a  man  and  poet,  and  of 
our  gratitude  to  him  for  the  sweet  songs  that 
have  delighted  and  benefited  our  better  mental 
life.  They  are  written  as  a  protest  against  the 
universal  belief  of  his  time  that  drink  was  an 
aid  to  the  highest  mental  exercise,  an  inspiration 
to  genius,  and  especially  to  the  poet.  We  do 
not  apologize  for  Goldsmith.  The  times  were 
as  much  to  blame  as  he.  They  were  thoroughly 
alcoholized,  and  the  literary  era  to  which  he  be- 
longed was  saturated  with  wine.  These  words 
are  meant  as  a  flat  denial  to  the  claims  of  the 
brewers  and  distillers  in  the  pamphlets  sown 
broadcast  among  our  people,  our  young  men,  that 
the  great  thinkers  of  the  world  have  been  so  be- 
cause they  have  used  intoxicants,  and  that  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  is  the  most  brilliant  because  it 
consumes  the  largest  amount  of  alcohol.  These 
great  men,  these  Anglo-Saxons  have  been  and  are 
great  in  mental  ability  in  spite  of  alcohol,  not 
on  account  of  it;  and  the  most  brilliant  men 
mentally  among  all  civilized  nations  today  are 
coming  to  this  conclusion  and  are  not  only  letting 
drink  alone  themselves  but  doing  what  they  can 
to  expel  it  from  their  communities  and  countries. 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      61 

In  the  light  of  modern  science  that  reveals  the 
damage  of  alcohol  to  the  brain  cells,  in  the  light 
of  modern  psychology  which  demonstrates  the  in- 
jury of  drink  to  mental  processes,  in  the  presence 
of  a  life  so  harmed  by  alcohol,  how  pitiful  do  the 
words  of  Goldsmith  sound: 

"Good   liquor,    I   stoutly   maintain, 
Gives  genius  a  better  discerning." 

ROBERT  BURNS 

Burns  is  another  poet  to  whom  the  apologists 
for  drink  point  as  an  example  of  the  advantage 
of  intoxicating  stimulants  to  genius,  of  the  wings 
that  wine  gives  to  the  imagination.  They  quote 
words  of  Burns  in  their  favor,  among  them  these; 

"John  Barleycorn  was  a  hero  bold, 

Of  noble  enterprise, 
For  if  you  do  but  taste  his  blood, 

'Twill  make  your  courage  rise. 
'Twill  make  a  man  forget  his  woe, 
Twill  heighten  all  his  joy." 

The  liquor  dealers  of  today  seem  to  take  pride 
in  holding  up  Burns  as  the  champion  of  their 
cause,  as  an  example  of  the  brilliancy  of  intel- 
lectual genius  inspired  by  their  wares.  But 
Burns's  history  refutes  their  contention  and  furn- 
ishes one  of  the  most  powerful  arguments  against 
their  claim.  The  study  of  that  history,  written 
by  the  most  friendly  biographers,  furnishes  the 


62      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

most  positive  testimony  to  the  damage  drink  did 
to  the  poet  at  the  beginning  of  his  career,  and  of 
the  complete  wreckage  it  caused  at  its  close.  His 
nation  was  one  of  the  most  intellectual  in  the 
world,  not  on  account  of  alcohol,  as  the  liquor 
men  maintain,  but  in  spite  of  it.  At  the  time 
Burns  came  to  his  majority  everything,  from  the 
pastor's  study  to  the  disgraceful  hovel,  smelled  of 
Scotch  whisky  or  some  other  stimulant,  and  young 
Robert  drank,  of  course,  as  they  all  did.  And 
when  he  felt  the  symptoms  of  his  poetic  genius 
arising  in  his  soul  he  continued  to  drink,  as  all 
poets  were  expected  to  do,  to  inspire  his  imagina- 
tion, warm  his  affections,  and  add  charms  to  his 
conversation  in  the  highest  circles  of  society.  One 
of  his  earliest  poems  was  written  while  he  was 
drunk.  He  did  not  publish  it  in  the  first  edition 
of  his  poems,  but  he  did  in  the  second.  He  was 
so  brutally  frank  with  himself  and  with  others, 
and  the  times  were  so  whisky-soaked,  that  he  made 
no  concealment  of  the  fact  that  he  composed 
"Death  and  Doctor  Hornbook"  while  drunk,  and 
the  true  story  at  the  bottom  of  it  was  verified  by 
his  companions  at  the  time.  The  genius  of  the 
man  was  so  great  that  the  poem  he  wrote  while 
drunk  is  better  than  the  verses  most  sober  men 
can  make.  This  is  the  occasion  of  the  poem: 
John  Wilson,  a  school  teacher  at  Tarbolton,  not 
far  from  the  farm  on  which  Burns  lived  with  his 
father,  had  a  smattering  knowledge  of  medicine, 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      63 

got  an  office,  a  few  bottles  and  drugs,  and  entered 
upon  the  practice  of  medicine.  He  was  a  member 
of  a  literary  club  to  which  Burns  belonged.  One 
night  Doctor  Wilson  and  the  young  poet  got  into 
a  spirited  debate  over  a  question  of  medicine,  in 
which  Burns  became  offended.  From  the  club 
Burns  went  to  the  Freemason's  lodge  which  he 
loved  so  dearly,  and  which  was  so  proud  of  him, 
and  after  the  meeting  was  over  he  started  late  to 
his  home  in  the  country.  He  says  in  the  poem  he 
was  "not  full,"  but  that  he  "had  a  plenty,"  and 
that  on  his  way  home  he  took  more  than  a  plenty, 
and  was  only  able  to  get  as  far  as  the  bridge. 
Seating  himself  on  the  stone  abutment  with  a  good 
support  for  his  back,  he  dosed  in  a  drunken 
stupor.  On  his  way  to  the  bridge  he  had  seen  a 
man  lying  in  the  road  dead  drunk,  but  he  was  so 
near  that  condition  himself  that  he  could  not  help 
the  man.  Seated  on  the  stones  of  the  bridge, 
overcome  by  booze,  the  sight  of  the  drunken  man 
in  the  road  reminded  him  of  death,  and  the  deep 
insult  of  the  evening  reminded  him  of  Doctor  Wil- 
son, whom  he  called  Hornbook,  and  so  he  com- 
posed a  poem  of  a  number  of  stanzas  on  "Death 
and  Doctor  Hornbook."  He  fell  fast  asleep  and 
did  not  know  anything  till  the  clang  of  the  church 
bell  awoke  him,  and  he  found  the  early  morning 
sun  shining  on  his  face.  He  remembered  the 
stanzas  he  had  composed  in  his  drunken  delirium 
and  wrote  them  down  as  we  have  them  today. 


64      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Death  complained  bitterly  that  Doctor  Horn- 
book was  encroaching  on  his  territory;  that  while 
he  had  a  scythe  and  dart  and  slew  many,  the  doc- 
tor killed  more  with  his  medicine;  and  he  gave  as 
instances  the  case  of  the  weaver's  wife  who  had 
"ill  bred  nerves"  and  called  in  Doctor  Hornbook 
to  quiet  her.  He  did.  He  gave  her  something 
to  put  her  to  sleep  and  she  never  awoke.  And 
also  the  case  of  the  innkeeper's  daughter  who  got 
tipsy  on  beer  and  called  in  the  doctor  to  hide  her 
disgrace,  which  he  did  by  sending  her  to  her  long 
home,  etc.  Of  the  poem  Wordsworth  says: 

"When  Burns  wrote  his  story  of  (Death  and 
Doctor  Hornbook'  he  had  very  rarely  been  intoxi- 
cated, or  perhaps  much  exilarated  by  liquor.  Yet 
how  happily  does  he  lead  his  reader  into  that 
track  of  sensations,  and  with  what  lively  humor 
does  he  describe  the  disorder  of  his  senses  and 
the  confusion  of  his  understanding,  put  to  the 
test  by  his  deliberate  attempt  to  count  the  horns 
of  the  moon : 

!<  'But  whether  she  had  three  or  four 
He  couldna  tell.' 

"Behold  a  sudden  apparition  which  disperses 
this  disorder,  and  in  a  moment  chills  him  into  the 
possession  of  himself.  Coming  upon  no  more  im- 
portant mission  than  the  grisly  phantom  was 
charged  with,  what  mode  of  introduction  could 
have  been  more  efficient  or  appropriate?" 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      65 

An  evidence  of  the  public  sentiment  of  the 
times  on  the  subject  of  the  drinking  habit  can  be 
seen  in  the  fact  that  so  serious,  so  deeply  a  re- 
ligious man  as  Wordsworth  has  no  word  of  crit- 
icism of  the  conviviality  of  the  young  genius,  only 
words  of  commendation  at  the  cleverness  with 
which  he  performed  the  intellectual  feat  when 
drunk.  Though  Burns  advertised  his  indiscretion 
unduly  in  the  poem  in  the  beginning  of  his  literary 
career,  Wordsworth  was  right  in  the  statement 
that  this  drunk  at  the  bridge  was  an  exception, 
and  that  he  was  usually  a  man  of  temperate 
habits. 

The  very  year  he  produced  "Death  and  Doc- 
tor Hornbook"  he  wrote  "The  Epistle  to  Davie," 
"The  Twa  Herds,"  "The  Jolly  Beggars,"  "Hal- 
low E'en,"  "The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,"  "Holy 
Willie's  Prayer,"  "The  Holy  Fair"  and  "The 
Address  to  a  Mouse."  This  year's  wrork,  if  he 
had  never  written  another  line,  would  have  given 
him  immortality.  The  next  year  produced  a  har- 
vest for  his  pen.  All  his  poems  were  printed  in 
a  volume  in  1786,  which  gave  the  author  instant 
and  universal  fame  in  Scotland  and  throughout 
the  world.  The  finest  drawing-rooms  of  Edin- 
burgh and  other  cities  were  opened  wide  to  this 
brilliant  plowboy  poet.  He  got  one  hundred  dol- 
lars out  of  his  first  book,  but  he  republished  it  the 
next  year  and  realized  twenty-five  hundred  dol- 
lars from  it.  The  next  year  appeared  in  Scott's 


66      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Musical  Museum,  published  by  Johnson,  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  of  the  shortest  and  best  things 
Burns  wrote.  They  were  bewitchingly  beautiful 
and  tender  songs,  many  of  them  adapted  to  old 
Scotch  airs,  nothing  in  any  language  sweeter  than 

they. 

But  the  heart  of  the  singer  grew  suddenly  sick 
and  his  songs  became  few  and  feeble.  Drink  had 
done  its  cruel  work  with  him  in  four  short  years 
and  dealt  him  the  fatal  stab.  In  four  years  from 
the  time  that  he,  as  a  young  man  of  twenty-six, 
surprised  the  world  with  his  first  stanzas  and  be- 
came the  acknowledged  chief  of  Scottish  poets, 
he  stood,  a  poor  wreck,  broken  in  spirit  and 
health,  with  no  money  and  few  friends,  measuring 
casks  of  liquor  at  a  few  hundred  dollars  a  year. 

Of  his  position  in  the  excise  department  he  was 
not  proud,  and  generally  referred  to  it  with  an 
apology,  and  often  with  bitterness.  Of  it  he 
writes:  "I  am  a  miserable  buried  devil,  and  for 
private  reasons  am  forced,  like  Milton's  Satan, 
'To  do  what  yet,  though  damned,  I  would  ab- 
hor.' "  To  Mrs.  Riddell  he  says,  "Sunday  closes 
a  period  of  our  curst  revenue  business,  and  may 
probably  keep  me  employed  with  my  pen  till  noon 
— fine  employment  for  a  poet's  pen !  There  is  a 
species  of  the  human  genus  that  I  call  the  gin- 
horse  class:  what  amiable  dogs  they  are!  round 
and  round  and  round  they  go.  MundelPs  ox  that 
turns  his  cotton  mill  is  their  exact  prototype — 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      67 

without  an  idea  or  wish  beyond  their  circle,  fat, 
sleek,  stupid,  patient,  quiet  and  contented;  while 
here  I  sit,  altogether  Novemberish,  a  melange  of 
fretfulness  and  melancholy,  not  enough  of  the  one 
to  rouse  me  to  passion,  nor  of  the  other  to  repose 
me  in  torpor;  my  soul  floundering  and  fluttering 
round  her  tenement  like  a  wild  finch  caught  amid 
the  horrors  of  winter  and  newly  thrust  into  a  cage. 
Well,  I  am  persuaded  it  was  of  me  the  Hebrew 
sage  prophesied  when  he  foretold:  'And  behold, 
on  whatsoever  this  man  doth  set  his  heart,  it  shall 
not  prosper.'  ' 

While  gauger  he  tried  hard  to  get  the  position 
of  a  supervisor,  so  that  he  might  be  eligible  to 
the  office  of  collector  of  revenue  at  a  good  salary 
and  abundant  leisure  for  literary  work,  and  made 
an  earnest  plea  to  Patrick  Heron,  whom  he  had 
aided  in  the  election  campaign  with  his  pen,  but 
failed  in  his  ambition.  To  think  that  the  man 
who  only  five  years  before  had  been  the  most 
talked  of  and  best-beloved  man  in  Scotland,  with 
all  the  help  of  influential  friends  he  could  sum- 
mon, could  not  get  the  supervisorship  of  the  town 
of  Dumfries!  Was  there  ever  so  great  a  fall  in 
so  short  a  space  of  time?  The  Scotch  drink  to 
whose  laudation  he  devotes  a  whole  poem,  is 
directly  responsible  for  his  fall.  Was  Bacchus 
ever  so  delighted  as  when  he  took  the  most  bril- 
liant intellect  of  Scotland  and  set  him  as  his  slave 
to  the  task  of  poking  a  measurer  into  a  cask  to 


68      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

find  out  how  much  liquor  it  contained,  and  held 
him  to  it  at  a  starvation  wage  and  would  not  let 
him  up  ? 

The  drinking  habit  and  the  social  irregularities 
that  so  often  go  with  it  and  grow  out  of  it  put 
Burns  into  the  gauger's  office  as  the  last  ditch. 
His  drinking  while  in  the  excise  department  was 
so  excessive  that  some  of  his  best  friends  remon- 
strated with  him,  among  them  Mrs.  Dunlop.  The 
reply  of  the  poet  was  "occasional  hard  drinking 
is  the  devil  to  me.  Against  this  I  have  again  and 
again  bent  my  resolution,  and  have  greatly  suc- 
ceeded. Taverns  I  have  totally  abandoned.  It 
is  the  private  parties  in  the  family  way,  among  the 
hard-drinking  gentlemen  of  this  country7,  that  do 
me  the  mischief,  but  even  this  I  have  more  than 
half  given  over." 

Burns  makes  this  apology  to  Mrs.  Riddell  after 
a  social  bout  at  a  dinner  she  gave  at  her  house. 
"I  write  you  from  the  regions  of  hell,  amid  the 
horrors  of  the  damned.  Here  am  I  laid  on  a 
bed  of  pitiless  furze,  while  an  infernal  tormentor, 
wrinkled  and  cruel,  called  'Recollection,'  with  a 
whip  of  scorpions,  forbids  peace  or  rest  to  ap- 
proach me,  and  keeps  anguish  eternally  awake.  I 
wish  I  could  be  reinstated  in  the  good  opinion  of 
the  fair  circle  whom  my  conduct  last  night  so 
much  offended.  To  the  men  of  the  company  I 
will  make  no  apology.  Your  husband,  who  in- 
sisted on  my  drinking  more  than  I  chose,  has 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      69 

no  right  to  blame  me,  and  the  other  gentlemen 
were  partakers  of  my  guilt." 

To  his  gentlemen  friends  who  undertook  to 
admonish  him  on  the  rapidity  with  which  he  was 
wrecking  himself  by  his  convivial  habits,  the  poet 
was  not  so  polite  or  patient  as  he  was  to  the 
women  who  had  spoken  to  him.  When  William 
Xichol  undertook  to  give  him  advice  as  to  the 
damage  that  drink  was  doing  him,  Burns  answered 
him  with  one  of  the  most  cutting  satires  in  any 
language,  showing  up  the  weakness  of  his  accuser. 
And  when  John  Syme  was  entertaining  him  one 
afternoon  at  his  home  at  Ryedale,  and  the  wine 
flowed  freely  and  the  poet  got  singularly  gracious 
and  confidential,  the  host  criticised  the  conduct  of 
his  guest.  The  criticism  was  resented  instantly. 
Syme  said:  "I  might  have  spoken  daggers,  but  I 
did  not  mean  them.  Burns  shook  to  the  inmost 
fibre  of  his  frame,  and  drew  his  sword  cane, 
when  I  exclaimed,  'What,  wilt  thou  thus,  and  in 
mine  own  house?'  The  poor  fellow  was  so  stung 
with  remorse  that  he  dashed  himself  down  on  the 
floor.5' 

Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  referring  to  this  incident, 
says,  "It  is  a  dreadful  truth  that  when  racked  and 
tortured  by  the  well-meant  and  warm  expostula- 
tions of  an  intimate  friend  Burns  started  up,  in  a 
paroxysm  of  frenzy,  and  drawing  a  sword  cane 
which  he  usually  wore,  made  an  attempt  to  plunge 


70     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

it  into  the  body  of  his  adviser; — the  next  instant 
he  was  with  difficulty  withheld  from  suicide." 

Burns  went  to  a  shop  and  bought  a  pair  of 
revolvers  to  avenge  some  imagined  injury  done  to 
him,  remarking  that  they  were  unlike  some  men 
whom  he  knew  in  that  they  "reflected  the  honor  of 
their  maker."  Thus,  perhaps  the  most  brilliant 
intellectual  genius  of  the  world  at  the  time,  in 
those  spells  of  intoxication,  was  made  a  madman, 
a  demon,  through  rum. 

Without  money  in  his  pocket  and  with  little 
food  in  the  house  Burns  wrote  to  Thompson: 
"After  all  my  boasted  independence,  curst  neces- 
sity compels  me  to  implore  you  for  five  pounds. 
A  cruel  haberdasher,  to  whom  I  owe  an  account, 
taking  it  into  his  head  that  I  am  dying,  has  com- 
menced a  process  and  will  infallibly  put  me  in 
jail.  Do,  for  God's  sake,  send  me  that  sum,  and 
that  by  return  of  post.  Forgive  me  this  earnest- 
ness, but  the  horrors  of  a  jail  have  made  me  half 
distracted." 

"Poor  Bobbie,"  not  more  to  be  blamed  than 
the  alcoholized  times  that  made  him  a  victim;  not 
more  than  the  science  that  taught  falsely,  the  lit- 
erature that  was  mistaken,  and  the  social  customs 
which  were  counted  proper,  yet  were  so  demor- 
alizing! The  lords  that  wined  and  dined  him, 
and  the  ladies  that  offered  him  the  social  glass 
to  sharpen  his  wit  or  promote  good  fellowship, 
had  much  to  do  with  his  downfall.  And  after 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      71 

they  had  thrown  him  down,  many  of  them  closed 
their  drawingrooms  and  their  friendship  to  him. 
Alcohol  poisoned  him,  mind  and  body,  depressed 
his  spirit  and  racked  his  body  with  pain,  and  al- 
lowed him  only  four  years  of  melody  with  his 
lyre  when  he  should  have  had  ten  times  as  long 
a  period  for  his  song.  Alcohol  disintegrated  his 
brain  cells,  dulled  his  imagination,  corrupted  his 
affections,  weakened  his  will,  tore  down  his  body 
and  sent  him  to  the  grave  in  poverty  and  distress 
at  thirty-seven,  when,  with  a  temperate  life,  free 
from  rum  and  the  social  irregularities  that  so  of- 
ten go  with  it  and  grow  out  of  it,  he  might  have 
lived  to  be  seventy  and  blessed  the  world  thirty- 
three  years  longer  with  his  immortal  songs. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  the  dark,  the  drink  side  of 
Burns's  life  with  deep  pain,  for  I  have  the  highest 
appreciation  of  and  warmest  affection  for  his 
poems.  I  have  wanted  to  cry  rather  than  blame 
all  the  while,  seeing  how  cruelly  wine  had  deceived 
and  mocked  and  slain  him.  My  mother  sang  the 
songs  of  Burns  to  me  when  I  was  a  little  boy  in 
our  home  on  the  farm.  How  sweet!  oh,  how 
sweet  they  sounded  to  me  then !  Sweet,  oh,  how 
sweet  is  their  echo  in  my  soul  today!  I  can  not 
get  them  out  of  my  heart,  nor  would  I  for  the 
world.  To  me  his  was  one  of  the  sweetest  lyres 
ever  swept  by  human  fingers.  His  voice,  his 
song,  came  by  wireless  across  the  sea  to  charm  me 
when  a  boy,  and  to  bless  me  now  a  man. 


72      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

This  poor  Scotch  gardener,  with  scanty  wages, 
living  in  a  poor  man's  house,  struggling  against 
all  kinds  of  misfortune  and  weakness,  with  genius 
enough  to  be  the  poet  laureate  of  the  realm,  but 
hired  by  the  government  to  a  menial  task  at  a  few 
pounds  a  year,  was  the  one  who  discovered  the 
richest  truth  in  the  most  unlikely  places,  the  purest 
gold  in  the  roughest  rocks,  the  costliest  pearls  in 
the  homeliest  shells.  He  found  the  splendors  of 
a  palace  under  the  roof  of  straw,  the  beauties  of 
Paradise  amidst  the  humblest  earthly  scenes,  the 
divinest  instincts  in  the  breast  of  the  lowliest  and 
most  forgotten.  He  had  a  heart  of  sympathy  for 
everything  God  has  made,  even  the  little  mice  in 
the  nest  upturned  by  the  plow,  and  poured  the 
wealth  of  his  affection  without  stint  upon  the 
hearts  of  his  fellow  men.  What  a  pity  that  this 
sweet  singer,  this  prince  of  poets,  should  have 
had  a  will  so  weak  and  appetites  so  strong,  and 
that  his  rising  sun  which  promised  such  a  glorious 
day  should  have  gone  down  at  noon !  Some  of  his 
acts  and  verses  we  condemn.  The  hand  of  chanty 
scatters  leaves  of  poppy  over  them  that  they  may 
sleep  in  the  grave  of  oblivion  where  they  belong; 
but  many  of  his  poems  are  so  embalmed  with 
sweet  sentiments  and  principles  that  they  will  live 
as  long  as  the  English  language  is  spoken.  At 
times  his  imperial  spirit  would  soar  to  the  loftiest 
heights  of  truth  and  love  and  life,  as  in  these 
lines  from  his  "Cotter's  Saturday  Night" : 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      73 

"Then  kneeling  down,  to  Heaven's  Eternal  King 

The  saint,  the  father,  and  the  husband  prays; 

Hope  springs  exulting  on  triumphant  wing, 

That  thus  they  all  shall  meet  in  future  days; 

There  ever  bask  in  uncreated  rays, 

No  more  to  sigh,  or  shed  the  bitter  tear, 

Together  hymning  their  Creator's  praise 

In  such  society,  yet  still  more  dear, 

While  circling  time  moves  round  in  an  eternal  sphere." 

THE  AMERICAN   POETS 

i 

With  the  rarest  exception,  American  literature 
has  been  free  from  alcohol.  Its  fumes  have  not 
appeared  in  the  lines  written  or  in  the  personal 
life  of  their  authors.  In  the  literary  history  of 
nations  men  of  genius  have  often  been  so  reckless 
in  their  morals  that  the  world  half  looked  for 
social  weakness  where  the  poetic  instinct  was  dis- 
covered. The  singers  who  have  made  American 
poetry  what  it  is  have  shown  that  temperance, 
social  purity  and  religious  vigor  are  most  becom- 
ing to  the  poet. 

We  have  had  great  poets  in  this  country,  of 
whom  we  are  justly  proud,  but  it  seems  to  us  that 
no  one  great  enough  has  yet  appeared  to  fittingly 
express  the  greatness  of  our  marvelously  great 
nation.  In  America,  where  the  blood  is  the  best 
because  it  is  the  best  blood  of  the  world  mixed 
here;  where  genius  flames  out  into  discoveries  of 
science  and  practical  art  such  as  the  world  has 


74     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

never  known,  where  the  desert  as  by  magic  has 
been  made  to  blossom  as  the  rose;  where  gigantic 
enterprises  have  been  promoted  and  wealth  ac- 
cumulated the  like  of  which  has  never  been  seen 
since  the  world  began ;  where  the  schools  and  col- 
leges are  prospering  on  so  large  a  scale;  where 
mighty  moral  reforms  have  been  effected  and  the 
church  has  been  so  triumphant,  it  would  be 
thought  that  some  poet  would  appear  large 
enough  to  incarnate  and  fittingly  sing  of  these 
majestic  things.  But  no  poet  has  appeared  high 
as  our  Rockies,  broad  as  our  prairies,  fertile  as 
our  fields,  rich  as  our  mines,  colossal  as  our  in- 
dustrial enterprise,  rugged  as  our  reforms,  sweet 
as  the  nation's  home  life,  beautiful  as  its  spirit  life. 
About  all  the  American  poetry  worth  consider- 
ing has  been  produced  in  the  past  hundred  years. 
It  was  two  hundred  years  after  the  landing  at 
Plymouth  before  a  single  American  poet  worthy 
of  the  name  appeared.  In  this  New  World,  with 
its  beautiful  gardens  and  fruitful  fields,  its  mag- 
nificent mountains,  sequestered  vales,  and  wide- 
spreading  prairies,  its  majestic  rivers  and  mighty 
seas,  with  its  sweet  home  life,  the  divinest  ideal 
of  liberty,  and  the  firm  faith  in  the  Everlasting, 
there  was  not  a  son  born  with  enough  genius  fit- 
tingly to  sing  of  its  beauty  and  glory.  There  were 
statesmen  and  generals  and  orators,  and  one  or 
two  prose  writers,  whose  fame  belongs  to  the 
centuries,  but  there  was  not  a  single  poet.  Then 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      75 

there  came  upon  the  stage  a  group  of  men  almost 
simultaneously  who  created  and  immortalized 
American  poetry.  Among  them  were  Bryant, 
Emerson,  Longfellow,  Whittier,  Holmes  and 
Lowell.  These  men  were  all  singularly  clean  in 
their  social  habits  and  free  from  alcohol. 

Longfellow  thus  voices  the  anti-alcohol  senti- 
ment of  American  poetry: 

"Now  to  rivulets  from  the  mountains 

Point  the  rods  of  fortune-tellers: 
Youth  perpetual  dwells  in  fountains, 
Not  in  flasks  and  casks  and  cellars." 

These  bards  did  not  reflect  the  sentiment  of 
their  times,  which  was  almost  universally  in  favor 
of  the  use  of  liquor.  The  sideboard  with  its  de- 
canter and  glasses  was  considered  a  necessary  arti- 
cle of  furniture  in  the  home  of  luxury  or  even  of 
respectability,  and  the  little  brown  jug  could  be 
found  nearly  everywhere  in  the  home  of  the 
artisan  as  a  promoter  of  happiness  and  industrial 
efficiency;  political  life  and  drinking  were  asso- 
ciated with  each  other  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Some  of  the  greatest  statesmen  and  orators  of  the 
nation  drank  heavily,  sometimes  to  drunkenness, 
and  little  was  thought  of  it  except  maybe  to  laugh 
at  the  silly  things  such  wise  men  would  say  or  do, 
or  pity  them  that  they  should  use  to  excess  a 
thing  which  in  moderation  was  so  good  for  them. 
The  capital  of  the  nation  itself  was  a  colossal  bar, 


76      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

where  the  representatives  of  the  people  could  the 
more  conveniently  drink  and  get  happy  and  even 
drunk  in  their  revels,  a  disgrace  to  them  and  to 
their  constituencies.  Drink  was  sold  at  many  of 
the  stores  with  as  little  hesitation  or  compunction 
as  flour,  sugar,  coffee,  or  any  other  article  of  food. 
And  yet  at  this  time,  when  about  every  depart- 
ment of  American  life  was  saturated  with  alcohol, 
our  poetry,  which  in  the  opinion  of  the  centuries 
should  be  allowed  the  largest  liberty  in  the  use  of 
stimulants,  and  would  be  expected  to  furnish  ex- 
hibitions of  the  most  excessive  revelries,  was 
sober.  There  were  no  spells  of  clownishness,  no 
breaking  of  social  law  as  the  privilege  of  the  high- 
est genius,  no  sprees  nor  wreckages  of  body  or 
mind,  with  financial  bankruptcy  and  untimely 
death.  The  founders  of  American  poetry  men- 
tioned were  prudent,  dignified,  honored  by  the 
whole  nation.  They  were  good  men,  with  lovely 
families,  great  men,  professors  at  universities, 
examples  to  young  men,  men  of  sterling  character, 
loyal  to  God  and  their  fellows;  and  with  cleanli- 
ness and  supreme  self-mastery  that  all  lived  to 
be  old  men,  to  sing  during  the  many  beautiful 
years  their  sweetest  songs  to  charm,  and  whole- 
some sentiments  to  bless  the  hearts  of  their  fel- 
lows for  a  long  generation  or  more.  Whittier 
particularly,  who  exerted  a  larger  temperance  in- 
fluence upon  our  national  life  than  any  other  poet, 
was  a  total  abstainer  from  strong  drink.  He 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      77 

never  tasted  liquor  in  his  life,  and  in  his  robust 
style  by  precept  as  well  as  by  example  he  main- 
tained and  promoted  the  principle  of  abstinence. 
This  principle  is  notably  expressed  in  his  poem  on 
the  celebration  of  St.  Crispin's  Day,  in  which  he 
has  the  courage  to  propose  the  health  of  the  shoe- 
makers in  a  glass  of  water  instead  of  wine: 

"Then  let  the  toast  be  freely  quaffed 
In  water  cool  and  brimming.' ' 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 

We  omitted  one  name  from  the  group  whick 
founded  and  immortalized  American  poetry,  that 
of  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  who  was  contemporary  witk 
the  poets  mentioned.  He  was  in  a  class  by  him- 
self in  temperament,  life  and  song.  He  was,  per- 
haps, the  greatest  native  poetic  genius  of  all  the 
group,  and  one  of  the  greatest  any  nation  ever 
had.  The  imagination,  the  creative  faculty,  the 
one  that  pictures  and  rhymes  and  sings,  he  pos- 
sessed in  so  large  a  degree  that  there  was  no  limit 
to  the  heights  to  which  he  soared  when  he  felt 
most  free.  In  keen,  clear,  intense  lyrical  quality 
his  best  songs  have  seldom  been  surpassed.  His 
two  volumes  of  short  tales  were  up  to  the  highest 
literary  standard,  and  have  furnished  and  have 
been  taken  as  models  for  the  story-writers  of 
France  for  the  past  sixty  years. 

Poe  was  the  only  one  of  the  great  American 


7  8      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

poets  who  toyed  with  intoxicants  and  was  ruined 
by  them.  The  smoke  of  the  distillery  and  brew- 
ery settled  down  as  a  cloud  upon  him,  and  many 
of  the  things  he  wrote  in  poetry  and  prose  were 
darkened  with  misery  and  hopeless  gloom,  proph- 
ecies of  the  tragedy  to  follow.  Did  not  his  habit 
steadily,  almost  insensibly  at  first,  but  surely,  build 
about  him  a  cage  against  which  he  wounded  the 
wings  of  his  great  soul,  and  against  the  bars  of 
which  he  threshed  out  his  precious  life? 

One  of  the  best  literary  authorities  has  this  to 
say  of  the  effect  of  Poe's  drinking  habits  upon  his 
professional  career.  "His  brilliant  and  well- 
known  ability  readily  procured  him  employment, 
and  his  frantic  habits  of  dissipation,  with  the 
regularity  of  a  natural  law,  insured  his  early  and 
ignominious  dismissal." 

In  1835  Poe  was  made  editor  of  the  Literary 
Messenger,  in  Richmond,  with  the  promise  of  a 
good  income  and  opportunity  to  redeem  his  name 
from  the  youthful  follies  and  sins  that  had  dis- 
graced it,  but  his  habit  was  so  strong  and  will  so 
weak  that  he  went  on  frequent  sprees,  for  which 
the  owner  of  the  paper  discharged  him.  He 
wrote  a  letter  with  a  pitiful  plea  for  reinstatement, 
and  the  publisher  sent  back  this  reply:  "That 
you  are  sincere  in  all  your  promises  I  firmly  be- 
lieve, but  when  once  again  you  tread  these  streets, 
I  have  my  fears  that  your  resolution  will  fail  and 
that  you  will  drink  again  till  your  senses  are  lost. 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      79 

If  you  rely  on  your  own  strength,  you  are  gone. 
Unless  you  look  to  youj^  Maker  for  help  you  will 
not  be  safe.  How  much  I  regretted  parting  from 
you  is  known  to  Him  only  and  to  myself.  I  had 
become  attached  to  you.  I  am  still.  I  would 
willingly  say  return,  did  not  a  knowledge  of  your 
past  life  make  me  dread  a  speedy  renewal  of  our 
separation.  You  have  fine  talents,  Edgar,  and 
you  ought  to  have  them  respected  as  well  as  your- 
self. Separate  yourself  from  the  bottle  and  from 
bottle  companions  forever." 

But  he  did  not  take  the  advice  of  this  good 
man,  did  not  give  up  the  bottle  nor  bottle  com- 
panions; he  did  not  lean  on  God  for  help,  but 
floundered,  the  mighty  genius  that  he  was,  in  the 
mire,  a  slave  of  evil  habit.  A  biographer  says 
he  became  so  besotted  that  he  sold  the  memoir  of 
his  beautiful  wife  whom  he  loved  devotedly  to 
get  money  to  buy  rum  to  drown  his  sorrow. 

In  1859,  realizing  what  a  fearful  wreck  he  was, 
and  knowing  that  he  would  soon  fill  a  drunkard's 
grave  if  he  did  not  reform,  he  did  what  he  had 
so  often  done  before,  resolved  to  quit  drinking; 
and  to  help  his  resolution  he  joined  a  temperance 
society  and  took  a  pledge  of  total  abstinence, 
which  he  kept  for  six  months,  to  the  joy  of  his 
friends  and  himself.  Sobered  up  as  he  was,  with 
a  new  start  for  life,  he  became  engaged  to  marry 
a  wealthy  widow  of  Richmond,  Virginia,  whom 
he  had  loved  in  his  youth.  He  went  to  Baltimore 


So      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

to  make  some  preparations  for  his  wedding,  and 
there  met  some  of  his  old  convivial  friends,  who 
carried  him  away  on  a  carousal  which  left  him 
dead  drunk  in  the  gutter,  from  which  he  was  car- 
ried to  the  Marine  Hospital  of  that  city.  Awak- 
ening out  of  his  drunken  stupor,  he  opened  his 
eyes  widely  and  said,  "Where  am  I?"  The  physi- 
cian replied,  uYou  are  cared  for  by  your  best 
friends."  With  a  look  of  insufferable  weariness 
and  inexpressible  agony  he  answered,  "My  best 
friend  would  be  the  man  who  wyould  blow  out  my 
brains."  In  four  days  after,  on  Sunday,  October 
7,  1859,  he  died. 

Edgar  Allan  Poe  died  at  forty  years  of  age, 
with  a  life  only  fairly  begun !  What  a  sad  com- 
mentary on  the  alcoholized  times  that  were  as 
much  to  blame  as  he  for  his  ruin!  If  the  trend 
of  his  environment  could  have  been  toward  tem- 
perance and  piety,  and  his  will  could  have  had 
better  help  to  withstand  the  temptations  of  ap- 
petite, it  is  possible  he  would  have  lived  to  three- 
score years  and  ten,  as  all  of  his  contemporary 
poets  did,  and  sung  sweet  and  marvelous  songs 
all  that  time  to  bless  his  fellows  in  our  own  land 
and  throughout  the  world. 

What  a  glorious  group  of  veterans  his  contem- 
poraries were!  Lowell  lived  to  be  seventy-three; 
Longfellow  to  be  seventy-five;  Bryant  to  be 
eighty-four;  Whittier  and  Holmes  each  to  be 
eighty-five. 


ALCOHOL  AND  LITERATURE      81 

It  is  mere  speculation,  and  yet  it  is  possible 
that  Poe  was  made  by  nature  to  be  the  great 
American  ideal  poet,  matching  and  expressing  the 
magnificences  everywhere  else,  and  that  the  drink 
habit  hindered  and  dwarfed  him,  cut  his  life  short. 
If  with  his  creative  genius  he  could  have  had  the 
abstinence  of  a  Whittier  and  the  religion  of  a 
Longfellow,  whom  he  so  mercilessly  lashed  in  his 
criticisms,  he  might  have  measured  up  to  the  de- 
mands of  so  mighty  a  nation  and  been  crowned 
as  its  poet  laureate.  Since  Poe,  under  his  fearful 
handicaps  of  drink  and  brief  life  of  misery,  could 
secure  such  a  permanent  place  in  literature,  to 
what  an  eminence  might  he  have  been  elevated, 
on  what  a  throne  of  power  might  he  have  been 
seated,  and  what  a  scepter  of  authority  might  he 
have  wielded,  had  he  been  free  from  those  handi- 
caps, free  to  soar  and  sing  through  a  generation 
and  generations  to  come? 

The  poet  for  whom  the  great  America  has 
looked  has  not  appeared.  God  will  send  him  in 
his  own  good  time.  In  poetic  genius,  righteous- 
ness, truth,  love  and  faith  a  giant  like  those  of 
classic  story,  whose  feet  were  on  the  earth  and 
whose  head  was  among  the  stars,  and  yet  a  charm- 
ing minstrel,  whose  lyre  will  be  sweet  enough  and 
strong  enough  to  be  heard  by  the  millions  of  all 
nations  and  by  the  centuries  to  come. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ALCOHOL  AND  CAPITAL 

A  THING  so  bad  for  the  individual  as  rum 
is  bad  for  society.  Individuals  injured 
by  drink  make  a  damaged  community. 
And  the  people  who  do  not  use  intoxicants  are 
greatly  pestered  and  distressed  by  those  who  do. 
Hence  it  is  natural  that  society  should  resist  and 
fight  this  enemy. 

Society  is  putting  up  a  fierce  fight  against  booze 
on  account  of  the  inefficiency  that  it  causes  in 
every  department  of  industry. 

Nearly  all  the  biggest  forms  of  industry  in  this 
country  discourage,  if  they  do  not  forbid,  the  use 
of  intoxicants  by  their  employees. 

The  railroads  of  the  United  States  forbid  their 
men  to  take  liquor.  Many  years  ago  a  rule  was 
made  in  reference  to  their  men  drinking  or  enter- 
ing a  saloon,  which  has  been  well  kept  by  most  of 
the  railway  lines,  and  has  become  more  and  more 
strict  each  year.  It  seems  that  the  men  them- 
selves do  not  consider  this  prohibition  a  hardship, 
but  as  a  rule  recognize  that  it  is  for  the  mutual 
good  of  the  men  and  of  the  roads.  They  recog- 
nize that  the  perils  even  to  sober  men  are  very 

82 


ALCOHOL  AND  CAPITAL  83 

great,  and  know  that  those  perils  are  largely  in- 
creased when  liquor  is  in  evidence. 

RAILROAD  RULE  "G" 

I  called  on  Mr.  Hardin,  first  vice-president  of 
the  New  York  Central  Railroad,  for  details  as 
to  the  rule  forbidding  drink  among  the  men.  He 
handed  me  a  pamphlet  and  said:  "Here  it  is, 
Rule  G,  which  is  that  the  use  of  intoxicants  by 
employees  while  on  duty  is  prohibited.  Their 
use  or  the  frequenting  of  places  where  they  are 
sold  is  sufficient  cause  for  dismissal." 

I  asked  Mr.  Hardin  whether  this  is  a  contract 
with  the  men  or  a  rule  of  the  road.  He  said: 

It  was  a  rule  agreed  upon  by  the  railroads  of  the 
country  many  years  ago,  at  the  time  when  railroad  men 
were  rougher  than  they  are  now,  and  at  a  time  when  most 
people  drank.  The  rule  is  kept,  and  the  most  hopeful 
thing  is  that  the  men  themselves  do  much  to  enforce  it. 
About  all  of  the  men  holding  positions  of  responsibility 
keep  this  rule.  The  various  labor  organizations  also  help 
to  enforce  it.  If,  for  instance,  an  engineer  should  be 
found  taking  a  drink,  a  representative  of  the  organization 
would  come  to  him  and  say:  'You  must  stop;  this  will 
not  do.  If  you  have  liquor  in  you,  you  may  run  into  my 
train  and  kill  me  and  kill  yourself/  Scarcely  a  man  hold- 
ing any  responsible  position  of  importance  on  any  of  the 
great  railroads  of  the  country  can  be  coaxed  to  take  a 
drink  of  intoxicants.  The  railroad  men  are  a  fine  set  of 
men.  When  you  come  down  to  the  man  on  the  track 


84     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

with  his  shovel  and  pick,  we  cannot  enforce  our  rule  so 
strictly,  though  we  wish  to  discourage  drink  in  the  home 
of  the  humblest  laborer.  With  reference  to  abstinence  of 
men  charged  with  responsibility  I  know  whereof  I  speak. 
I  have  400  secret  service  men,  many  of  them  unknown  to 
the  other  men  themselves,  to  report  to  me  in  detail  the 
habits  of  the  men.  If  a  man  were  found  drinking  any- 
where on  our  lines,  we  would  hear  about  it  within  a  week. 
There  was  a  trial  of  a  railroad  case  the  other  day,  involv- 
ing the  carelessness  or  fault  of  an  engineer,  and  the  law- 
yer of  one  side  slurred  the  railroad  men  as  being  tough 
and  addicted  to  drink.  The  opposing  lawyer  with  feel- 
ing denied  the  charge,  and  defied  any  one  to  show  an 
engineer  on  the  whole  line  of  the  road  who  used  intoxi- 
cants at  all,  and  that  if  one  could  be  found  drinking  he 
would  be  instantly  discharged.  This  trial  was  with  refer- 
ence to  a  road  other  than  our  own,  but  it  illustrates  the 
fact  as  to  the  total  abstinence  of  men  charged  with  the 
gravest  responsibility  in  the  railroad  industry. 

I  had  interviews  with  a  number  of  leading  loco- 
motive engineers,  firemen,  conductors  and  train- 
men on  the  subject  and  found  not  only  unanimity 
of  opinion  on  the  subject,  but  real  enthusiasm  in 
their  friendliness  to  Rule  G,  calling  for  prohibi- 
tion. They  said  that  when  they  took  the  lives  of 
the  people  in  their  hands  they  felt  the  gravity  of 
the  responsibility — that  it  would  be  a  crime,  even 
the  highest  crime  of  murder,  to  take  intoxicants 
that  would  dull  their  senses  or  their  intellectual 
faculties  and  cause  fatal  accidents.  One  of  them 


ALCOHOL  AND  CAPITAL          85 

called  my  attention  to  the  fact  that  on  a  leading 
railroad  which  stood  well  up  toward  the  head  of 
the  column  in  the  few  accidents  that  had  occurred 
annually,  a  man  running  an  engine  called  at  a 
saloon  before  daylight  on  his  way  to  his  cab  and 
became  stupid  with  drink.  After  the  train  left 
the  station  he  let  his  engine  run  wild  and  crashed 
into  the  train  in  front  of  him,  killing  fifty  people 
and  occasioning  a  large  number  of  damage  suits. 
This  is  an  illustration  of  the  terrible  crime  of  a 
railroad  man  who  is  charged  with  great  responsi- 
bility having  anything  whatever  to  do  with  drink. 

Mr.  Stone,  the  president  of  the  Locomotive 
Railroad  Engineers  of  the  country,  has  said  and 
written  some  of  the  sanest  and  soundest  things  on 
the  damage  of  drink  to  the  railroad  man  and  to 
the  working  man  in  any  department  of  industry 
that  we  have  seen  in  American  temperance  litera- 
ture. 

Leaving  Mr.  Hardin's  office,  I  found  a  bar 
down  stairs.  That  costly,  magnificent  building 
had  become  prostituted  to  the  low  task  of  hous- 
ing a  saloon.  I  thought  that  Rule  G,  forbidding 
any  of  the  men  to  drink  and  a  saloon  in  the  sta- 
tion, tempting  the  men  to  intoxicants  and  de- 
bauching the  public,  were  contradictions.  I  felt 
that  the  lowest  down  Bowery  joint  was  as  respec- 
table in  the  eyes  of  a  good  conscience  and  of  God 
as  this  bar  in  the  Grand  Central  Station. 

The  directors  who  are  responsible  for  the  in- 


86     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

stallation  of  this  iniquitous  place  are  saloon- 
keepers and  hypocrites.  No  matter  what  im- 
portant pews  they  may  occupy  on  the  Sabbath  in 
the  sanctuary,  or  how  conspicuous  they  m'ay  be  in 
their  leadership  of  the  church,  no  matter  how 
prominent  they  may  be  on  the  boards  of  educa- 
tional or  benevolent  institutions;  no  matter  how 
conspicuous  as  leaders  they  may  be  in  business  or 
the  social  world,  no  matter  how  much  they  may 
cry  out  against  the  "low  groggery"  and  demand 
Rational  Prohibition,  they  are  saloonkeepers 
themselves. 

Standing  in  the  bar-room  of  the  Grand  Central 
Station,  in  imagination,  I  strapped  the  white  apron 
of  a  bartender  on  each  one  of  these  millionaire 
directors  and  put  the  black  stamp  of  "hypocrite" 
on  his  forehead.  I  do  not  forget  that  these  same 
directors  founded  one  of  the  finest  Railroad 
Young  Men's  Christian  Associations  in  America, 
a  few  blocks  up  the  avenue.  I  have  personally 
enjoyed  its  hospitality,  and  feel  that  the  public 
owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  these  officers  that  it 
can  never  repay.  And  yet  that  magnificent 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  to  save  the  young  men  does  not 
justify  the  saloon  in  the  station  in  destroying 
them,  but  makes  it  more  improper  and  hypocriti- 
cal. It  was  the  love  for  the  damnable  dollar  that 
opened  the  bar  in  the  Grand  Central  Station,  the 
same  vice  that  built  every  brewery  and  distillery, 
and  opened  every  saloon  in  the  country. 


ALCOHOL  AND  CAPITAL  87 

There  are  other  railroads  besides  the  New 
York  Central  which  have  bars  in  their  stations, 
and  they  are  included  in  these  words  of  condem- 
nation. 

Deep  as  the  hypocrisy  of  the  station  saloon  is 
that  of  the  dining-car  where  intoxicating  liquors 
are  sold.  Such  a  dining-car  is  a  saloon  on  wheels, 
and  gives  the  lie  to  Rule  G.  The  engineer,  the 
fireman,  the  conductor,  the  brakeman,  the  bag- 
gageman, the  peanut-vender,  are  all  forbidden  to 
touch  a  drop  of  liquor,  and  yet  a  saloon  car  is  put 
on  the  train  and  the  dining-car  conductor,  in  the 
service  of  beer,  whisky,  and  wine,  is  the  officially 
authorized  barkeeper.  And  the  charge  is  made 
that  some  diners  serve  drinks  going  through  dry 
States  and  districts  in  defiance  of  the  law,  and  in 
so  doing  become  bootleggers  of  the  lowest  and 
most  contemptible  sort.  The  negro  in  the  dry 
village  down  in  the  canebrake,  with  the  razor, 
and  with  bottles  of  illicit  liquor  in  his  bootlegs,  is 
just  as  honorable  as  those  responsible  for  the 
blind-tiger  dining-car.  Fortunately  the  conscience 
and  decency  of  the  directors  of  many  of  the  rail- 
roads have  taken  the  drinks  off  the  dining-car  bill 
of  fare,  and  our  words  of  criticism  of  course  do 
not  refer  to  them. 

There  is  no  more  reason  why  there  should  be  a 
Rule  G  for  the  employees  than  for  the  officers 
of  the  road,  from  the  directors  and  president 
down.  The  same  sagacity,  wisdom,  level-headed- 


88      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

ness,  freedom  from  alcohol  and  strength  is  re- 
quired of  the  officers  who  plan,  as  is  demanded  of 
the  men  who  execute  those  plans.  Fortunately,  a 
large  proportion  of  the  officers  of  the  roads  are 
strict  temperance  men,  many  of  them  total  ab- 
stainers, who  keep  the  rule  they  require  of  the 
men. 

STEEL  MANUFACTURERS 

The  steel  manufacturers  are  dealing  the  liquor 
business  a  staggering  blow  in  their  opposition  to 
drink  among  their  men.  It  is  a  cold  question  of 
economy.  It  used  to  be  thought  by  both  manu- 
facturers and  men  that  drink  was  necessary  to 
those  who  were  among  the  furnaces.  At  the  close 
of  each  heat,  the  men  laid  off  a  little  time  to  go 
to  the  nearest  saloon  for  refreshment.  This  false 
notion  has  been  reversed  by  both  the  proprietors 
and  workmen. 

This  placard  is  posted  all  over  the  works  of 
the  Illinois  Steel  Company  at  Joliet:  "To  the 
employees  of  the  Joliet  Works,  Illinois  Steel 
Company:  For  the  promotion  of  safety  and  wel- 
fare it  is  hoped  that  all  employees  will  avoid  the 
use  of  intoxicating  liquors.  Under  the  rules  of 
the  Joliet  Works,  any  employee  who  uses  intoxi- 
cating liquor  while  on  duty  will  be  discharged. 
In  making  promotions  in  any  department  of  the 
plant,  superintendents  of  departments  and  fore- 
men will  select  for  promotion  only  those  who  do 
not  use  intoxicating  liquors." 


ALCOHOL  AND  CAPITAL  89 

Any  one  entering  the  great  works  of  the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation  at  Gary,  Indiana, 
at  night,  will  see  huge  electric  lights  blazing  out 
these  questions:  uDid  booze  ever  do  you  any 
good?"  uDid  booze  ever  get  you  a  better  job?" 
uDid  booze  ever  contribute  anything  to  the  happi- 
ness of  your  family?" 

In  regard  to  abstinence  at  the  mill  at  Coates- 
ville,  Pennsylvania,  Mr.  Charles  L.  Huston  sent 
me  the  following: 

When  I  first  took  hold  as  superintendent  of  the  works 
some  twenty-five  years  ago,  I  decided  after  careful  con- 
sideration that  I  could  not  be  satisfied  to  give  any  coun- 
tenance to  drinking  on  the  part  of  the  men.  So  I  began 
to  deal  with  them  in  a  kindly,  forceful  way  when  I  found 
out  they  were  in  the  habit  of  indulging  even  when  away 
from  their  work,  and,  of  course,  could  not  permit  any- 
thing like  drinking  or  evidence  of  intoxication  while  at 
work.  I  was  a  little  fearful  lest  it  might  result  in  a 
shortage  of  capable  men,  but  found  just  the  reverse,  as 
we  never  had  to  hunt  for  men  or  advertise  for  them.  We 
have  always  found  a  sufficient  number  of  applicants,  good, 
respectable  men,  who  were  glad  to  work  in  a  place  where 
there  was  decent  behavior  and  a  freedom  from  things 
which  make  it  obnoxious  or  painful  for  Christian  men 
to  work  with  satisfaction. 

The  problem  was  a  comparatively  simple  one  until  we 
began  to  get  foreign-speaking  men  to  do  the  unskilled 
labor — American  men  not  relishing  this  work  when  they 
could  get  anything  else  to  do.  We  housed  the  foreign 
workmen  in  comfortable  quarters  built  upon  our  own 


90     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

property,  where  we  could  control  their  actions.  When 
the  beer  wagons  started  to  deliver  we  warned  them  to 
keep  off,  and  when  they  persisted  we  arrested  them  and 
forced  them  either  to  plead  guilty  or  to  suffer  convic- 
tion, on  the  charge  of  selling  liquor  in  an  illegal  manner, 
the  restriction  of  this  kind  of  traffic  being  quite  stringent 
and  effective,  if  one  will  take  the  time  and  trouble  to 
look  it  up  and  handle  it  vigorously.  In  addition  to  this, 
all  of  our  foreign-speaking  men,  who  are  the  principal 
offenders  in  this  line,  are  required  to  sign  in  their  rental 
contract  that  they  will  not  bring  liquor  nor  allow  it  to 
be  brought  into  their  houses,  and  the  men  themselves 
recognize  the  manifest  benefit  that  has  come  to  them  by 
this  restriction. 

We  find  in  our  work  that  the  very  best  men  are  the 
men  who  never  have  touched  intoxicants;  Christian  men 
who  work  at  every  opportunity  and  who  are  dependable 
at  all  times  and  can  stand  the  physical  strain  of  the  hot 
work  of  the  furnaces  better  than  drinking  men  can; 
retain  their  abillity  to  work  through  a  longer  period  of 
years,  and  give  a  totally  different  degree  of  satisfaction 
in  the  manning  of  all  our  different  departments.  I  most 
firmly  believe,  from  all  standpoints,  that  drink  is  an  abso- 
lute evil,  ruining  a  man  physically,  morally  and  spirit- 
ually, and  that  the  only  right  course  is  for  every  man  to 
let  it  absolutely  alone.  I  believe  a  great  deal  of  our 
economic  unrest  would  be  remedied  if  the  liquor  business 
were  put  out  of  our  land,  as  it  destroys  the  efficiency  of 
such  an  enormous  army  of  men  and  wastes  such  enormous 
sums  of  their  hard  earnings  for  that  which  is  not  bread. 
Our  concern  has  been  established  for  a  long  time,  having 
grown  from  a  modest-sized  establishment  to  one  employ- 


ALCOHOL  AND  CAPITAL          91 

ing  about  two  thousand  men,  paying  out,  when  running 
full,  about  $100,000  a  month  in  wages. 

Mr.  James  Brown,  president  of  the  Gulf  States 
Steel  Company,  has  sent  me  the  following  commu- 
nication, dated  July  23,  1917: 

As  president  of  the  Gulf  States  Steel  Company,  I  can 
state  that  it  is  our  inflexible  rule  not  to  promote  to  a 
position  of  any  importance  men  who  to  our  knowledge 
are  addicted  to  the  drinking  of  intoxicating  liquor,  either 
on  or  off  duty.  To  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  every 
holder  of  a  position  of  trust  either  indoors  or  outdoors 
in  our  various  departments  is  an  abstainer.  I  myself 
became  one  forty  years  ago  as  an  example  to  the  work- 
men employed  under  me.  We  find  the  percentage  of 
accidents  is  materially  reduced  in  our  steel  works,  as 
compared  with  some  others  where,  the  management  is  not 
so  pronounced  in  keeping  away  intoxicating  liquor.  With 
us  it  is  ground  for  immediate  discharge  if  any  man  is 
found  bringing  liquor  into  the  works. 

As  vice-president  of  the  Bessemer  Coal,  Iron  and  Land 
Company,  which  sells  homes  on  the  long  instalment  plan, 
I  can  state  that  that  company  in  1907  had  several  hun- 
dreds of  sale  contracts  running  with  ore  and  coal  miners 
of  the  Bessemer  district,  near  Birmingham.  At  that  time 
the  county  voted  out  liquor,  and  the  change  was  quite 
surprising.  The  vote  took  place  the  same  day  in  October 
as  the  big  panic  in  New  York,  with  the  suspension  of  the 
Knickerbocker  Trust  Company.  Nearly  half  of  the  blast 
furnaces,  coal  mines,  and  ore  mines  in  the  district  closed 
down  in  the  supervening  panic,  and  the  others  went  on 


92      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

short  time;  bui  we  found  that,  owing  to  the  prevalence 
of  total  abstinence,  the  money  was  paid  to  us  on  home 
purchase  instalments  that  might  otherwise  have  gone  for 
whisky.  Collectors  of  rents  and  dealers  in  furniture 
told  me  the  same  thing,  and  that  the  condition  of  the 
negro  miners  was  better  under  panic-abstinence  condi- 
tions than  it  was  before  the  crash  under  prosperity- 
whisky  conditions.  I  am  personally  a  determined  foe 
to  whisky.  I  realize  that  our  men  work  very  hard,  and 
I  want  to  see  them  save  their  money  and  buy  homes  and 
furniture,  and  be  well  fed  and  clothed. 

During  the  past  week  it  has  been  decided  in  this  city 
to  pull  down  the  south  side  jail,  and  build  a  negro  school- 
house  on  the  site.  The  commissioner  in  charge  of  street 
improvements  has  complained  to  the  city  commission  that 
he  has  not  enough  prisoners  to  keep  the  streets  clean, 
and  must  hire  free  men  for  the  purpose.  This  is  the 
result  of  Alabama  going  dry,  which  has  so  greatly  re- 
duced the  number  of  crimes  and  prisoners  that  one  jail 
now  in  the  city  will  take  the  place  of  two  under  whisky. 

Almost  all  the  forms  of  big  business  are  radi- 
cally opposed  to  drink  among  their  men  in  the 
interest  of  greater  efficiency. 

In  1914,  the  National  Safety  Council,  in  a  con- 
vention of  seven  hundred  members,  representing 
a  very  large  element  of  the  employees  of  labor, 
unanimously  adopted  a  resolution  declaring  that 
"the  drinking  of  alcoholic  stimulants  is  productive 
of  a  heavy  percentage  of  accidents  and  of  disease 
affecting  the  safety  and  efficiency  of  workmen." 


ALCOHOL  AND  CAPITAL          93 

In  going  through  the  large  manufacturing  es- 
tablishments of  the  country,  one's  eye  is  greeted, 
whichever  way  one  may  turn,  with  the  following 
placard: 

"We  want  only  clear-thinking  men  in  our  em- 
ploy. You  cannot  think  clearly  and  act  safely  if 
you  are  a  boozer.  Booze  poisons  the  brain.  It 
stimulates  for  a  short  time  only — then  deadens 
the  senses.  When  men's  minds  are  dull,  accidents 
are  bound  to  occur.  It  takes  alertness — quick 
thinking  and  acting — to  avoid  danger.  If  you 
must  booze,  then  don't  report  for  work.  We 
don't  want  boozers  on  our  premises.  They  are 
dangerous,  not  only  to  themselves,  but  to  all 
others  who  come  in  contact  with  them.  Booze 
will  never  get  you  a  job  nor  help  you  to  hold  one. 
Booze  will  never  help  you  pay  your  debts*,  nor 
increase  your  earning  power.  Booze  and  work 
won't  mix.  Sooner  or  later  one  must  be  sacrificed 
for  the  other.  Sidetrack  booze  before  booze  side- 
tracks you." 

In  a  letter  dated  Portsmouth,  Ohio,  July  17, 
1917,  Mr.  George  D.  Selby,  president  of  a  shoe 
manufacturing  company,  says : 

We  have  given  careful  attention  to  your  request  for 
information  on  the  question  of  "Alcohol  and  Efficiency." 
We  have  been  earnestly  and  carefully  trying  to  eliminate 
the  use  of  intoxicating  liquors  by  our  employees  for  the 
past  twenty-five  years,  but  have  not  wholly  succeeded, 


94     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

on  account  of  the  case  with  which  intoxicantss  can  be 
obtained  in  our  "wet"  town. 

Notwithstanding  all  the  care  we  have  given  this  ques- 
tion, we  have  been  compelled  to  discharge  a  number  of 
our  employees  recently,  on  account  of  the  drink  habit. 
Will  say  that  after  all  we  can  do  in  "wet"  territory  it 
is  a  handicap  of  perhaps  from  three  to  five  per  cent,  of 
our  payroll,  the  aggregate  of  which  is  over  $1,000,000 
per  annum,  considering  the  inefficiency  of  the  drinker  him- 
self and  the  loss  of  wages  to  others  on  account  of  the 
delayed  and  inefficient  work. 

We  have  always  done  and  will  continue  to  do  every- 
thing we  can  to  eliminate  the  intoxicating  liquor  traffic 
for  beverage  purposes,  and  we  think  we  have  a  good  pros 
pect  of  our  State  going  "dry"  in  November. 

I  heard  ex-Governor  Foss  of  Massachusetts 
make  a  powerful  address  on  the  reason  why  the 
business  world  is  fighting  rum,  and  how  certain  it 
is  that  it  will  never  cease  that  warfare  until  the 
traffic  in  liquors  is  destroyed.  I  asked  him  to  pre- 
pare in  succinct  form  his  views  on  the  subject  to 
be  used  as  a  paragraph  in  this  chapter  on  Busi- 
ness Against  Booze,  and  he  gave  me  this,  which 
hits  the  nail  on  the  head: 

In  my  practical  experience  as  an  employer  of  labor 
(5,000  men)  I  have  found  that  drink  causes  more 
trouble  than  almost  any  other  one  factor.  It  is  at  the 
bottom  of  irregularity  in  work,  lost  time,  and  many  other 
dislocations  and  irritations.  It  causes  a  very  large  pro- 
portion of  accidents.  This  is  serious  for  the  employed. 


ALCOHOL  AND  CAPITAL          95 

It  is  also  serious  for  the  employer,  who  is  liable  for  the 
results  of  accident. 

Drink  is  distinctly  injurious  to  production.  It  takes 
the  fine  edge  off  mental  tools;  it  slows  down  efficiency. 
Brewing  and  distilling  are  destructive  industries.  They 
lower  the  purchasing  power  of  the  masses  for  legitimate 
'products  to  a  very  serious  degree.  This  means  that 
great  quantities  of  clothing,  shoes,  food,  furniture,  and 
manufactured  articles  remain  unbought.  The  result  is 
stoppage  in  industrial  production  until  the  stocks  on 
hand  are  lowered.  In  this  way  drink  plays  an  important 
part  in  producing  periods  of  depression  and  industrial 
crisis. 

Drink,  bj  diverting  money  to  socially  unproductive 
industries  which  otherwise  would  be  deposited  in  banks, 
lessens  the  amount  of  capital  available  for  new  productive 
enterprises,  and  in  this  way  shuts  off  thousands  of  pos- 
sible openings  for  employment.  It  is  a  well-known  fact 
that  capital  invested  in  alcohol  manufacture  has  a  low 
employing  power. 

Mr.  J.  Ogden  Armour  of  Chicago,  whose 
meat-packing  company  does  an  annual  cash  busi- 
ness of  $500,000,000,  and  which  has  an  army  of 
40,000  on  its  pay-roll,  has  assured  me  that  he 
is  personally  an  advocate  of  temperance  and  so- 
briety, and  that  the  organization  of  Armour  & 
Company  puts  a  premium  on  men  who  abstain 
from  the  use  of  liquor  and,  in  accord  with  the 
trend  of  the  times,  the  drinkers  are  gradually 
being  weeded  out  and  replaced  by  more  efficient 
men  who  do  not  drink. 


96     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

One  of  the  strong  reasons  why  the  big  business 
of  the  country  is  fighting  drink  so  vigorously  and 
driving  it  so  swiftly  out  of  their  communities,  is 
the  Workmen's  Liability  Law  which  has  been 
passed  in  so  many  States,  which  makes  the  pro- 
prietor responsible  for  the  accidents  of  the  work- 
men. Drink  is  the  fruitful  cause  of  accidents 
in  the  establishment,  and  hence  the  fierce  warfare 
against  intoxicants. 

At  the  Raritan  Cooper  Works  in  Perth  Amboy, 
New  Jersey,  they  studied  their  accidents  and 
found  that  the  time  of  greatest  peril  is  the  first 
hour  of  the  day  shift  on  Monday  and  on  the 
days  following  holidays.  They  have  a  General 
Safety  Committee  which  gets  the  facts  and  pub- 
lishes them  in  a  bulletin  called  the  Ingot  Here 
is  the  Ingot's  comment  on  the  accident  figures: 

To  any  man  who  can  think  in  a  straight  line  these 
statistics  mean  just  one  thing.  It  is  a  plain  fact,  and  we 
will  state  it  plainly.  Too  much  drinking  at  night  means 
foggy  eyes  and  unsteady  nerves  next  morning.  Then 
the  accidents  pile  up.  Now,  let's  get  right  down  to 
brass  tacks.  This  is  no  grape-juice  journal;  we  hold  no 
brief  for  Prohibition.  What  we  are  working  for  is 
safety.  Cut  down  the  booze,  and  as  surely  as  day 
follows  night  you  will  cut  down  the  accidents. 


CHAPTER  V 

ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR 

THE  workmen  are  greatly  pleased  with  the 
prohibition  that  industry  has  required. 
At  first  they  thought  it  was  an  infringe- 
ment of  their  rights,  which  they  were  inclined  to 
resent;  but  on  a  trial  they  found  that  they  were 
so  much  stronger  and  better  able  for  their  work, 
that  they  lost  fewer  days,  that  their  families 
were  so  much  better  provided  for,  and  so  much 
happier,  that  they  not  only  acquiesced  in  the  rule, 
but  have  been  among  the  most  vigorous  instru- 
mentalities for  enforcing  it  and  driving  rum  out 
of  their  communities. 

Terence  Powderly,  the  old  grand  master  of  the 
Knights  of  Labor,  said: 

Had  I  ten  million  tongues,  and  a  throat  for  each 
tongue,  I  would  say  to  every  man,  woman  and  child 
here  to-night,  throw  strong  drink  aside  as  you  would 
an  ounce  of  liquid  hell.  It  sears  the  conscience ;  it  destroys 
everything  it  touches.  It  reaches  into  the  family  circle 
and  takes  the  wife  you  have  sworn  to  protect  and  drags 
her  down  from  her  purity  into  that  house  from  which 
no  decent  woman  ever  goes  alive.  It  induces  the  father 
to  take  the  furniture  from  the  home,  exchange  it  for 

97 


98      KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

money  at  the  pawnshop,  and  spend  the  proceeds  for  rum. 
It  damns  everything  it  touches.  I  have  seen  it  in  every 
city  east  of  the  Mississippi  River,  and  I  know  that  the 
most  damning  curse  to  the  laborer  is  that  which  gurgles 
from  the  neck  of  the  bottle.  I  would  rather  be  at  the 
head  of  an  organization  having  one  hundred  thousand 
temperate,  honest,  earnest  men,  than  at  the  head  of  an 
organization  of  twelve  million  drinkers,  whether  moderate 
or  any  other  kind. 

John  Mitchell,  a  famous  leader  in  the  labor 
world,  said:  "I  have  no  sympathy  with  the  state- 
ment, so  often  made,  that  the  manufacture  and 
sale  of  liquor  has  contributed  to  the  industrial 
development  of  the  nation.  On  the  contrary,  I 
believe  that  liquor  has  contributed  more  to  the 
moral,  intellectual  and  material  deterioration  of 
the  people,  and  has  brought  more  misery  to  de- 
fenseless women  and  children,  than  has  any  other 
agency  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

Hon.  William  E.  Borah,  United  States  Senator 
from  Idaho,  in  his  speech  on  the  Food  Bill  in  the 
Senate,  July  6,  1917,  thus  powerfully  portrays 
the  disastrous  effects  of  alcohol  upon  the  laboring 
man: 

"A  few  years  ago  in  a  Western  State,  during 
some  labor  troubles,  it  became  necessary  to  invoke 
martial  law.  Martial  law  was  invoked  and  ex- 
tended over  a  very  large  portion  of  the  State,  a 
portion  of  the  State  in  which  thousands  of  men 
were  in  the  employ  of  mine  operators  and  of 


ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR  99 

other  owners  of  industries.  It  was  a  very  ex- 
traordinary situation,  one  in  which  riot  and  crime 
for  a  time  held  almost  complete  sway.  Before 
those  who  had  charge  of  the  situation  could  even 
begin  to  restore  order  and  law  it  became  necessary 
to  close  the  saloons  and  drinking  places  in  that 
district,  and,  under  the  authority  of  martial  law, 
every  saloon  and  every  place  where  intoxicating 
liquors  were  sold  or  could  be  had  were  closed. 
They  remained  closed,  and  the  prohibition  of  the 
sale  and  of  the  drinking  of  liquor  remained  in 
force  for  many  months. 

"I  had  an  opportunity  to  observe  personally 
the  effect  of  that  upon  that  entire  district,  upon 
the  workingmen  in  the  district,  upon  the  indus- 
tries, and  upon  the  efficiency  which  it  brought  to 
labor.  The  homes  underwent  a  change  which  it 
would  be  very  difficult  for  language  to  portray. 
When  night  came  the  laboring  man  did  not  re- 
main at  the  saloon  or  upon  the  streets,  but  he 
went  to  his  home.  When  Saturday  night  came 
he  did  not  spend  the  evening  in  the  saloon,  but 
he  returned  to  his  home  and  took  his  week's  pay 
with  him.  When  he  left  his  home  on  Monday 
morning  it  was  an  entirely  different  home  to  what 
he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  leaving  while  the 
saloons  were  open. 

"The  experience  which  we  had  there  in  the 
few  months  while  those  saloons  were  closed  was 
one  of  the  most  potent  factors  in  the  cause  of 


ioo     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

absolute  prohibition  in  that  State.  I  had  not  my- 
self prior  to  that  time  been  what  you  would  call 
a  radical  advocate  of  the  prohibition  cause,  but 
I  became  so  by  reason  of  my  opportunity  of  wit- 
nessing with  my  own  eyes  the  effect  upon  the  labor 
world  of  taking  liquor  out  of  the  laborers'  lives. 
It  was  not  by  reason  of  any  theory,  but  by  reason 
of  example,  as  to  the  effect  of  which  and  the  im- 
portance of  which  and  the  significance  of  which 
there  could  be  no  doubt." 

The  liquor  men  have  claimed  to  be  the  cham- 
pions of  labor.  They  have  counted  upon  working- 
men  as  their  friends,  their  unfailing  allies.  For 
a  time,  they  had  untold  influence  over  labor  or- 
ganizations, arranging  that  the  meetings  of  many 
of  the  large  units  should  be  held  in  the  rooms 
back  of  or  over  saloons. 

The  disappointment  of  the  barroom  is  bitter 
at  the  manner  in  which  the  working  people  of  the 
nation  have  thrown  off  the  yoke  of  allegiance 
and  have  marched  up  to  the  ballot  boxes  and 
voted  against  the  saloon.  That  is  why  the  saloon 
is  going  so  fast — because  the  common  people, 
the  working  people,  are  against  it.  They  know 
better  than  any  one  that  the  wife  and  children 
and  job  are  their  friends,  and  that  the  saloon  is 
their  bitterest  enemy. 

The  plea  of  money  losses  to  the  laboring  man 
in  the  destruction  of  the  liquor  traffic  by  Prohi- 
bition is  answered  conclusively  by  Rev.  Chas. 


ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR  101 

Stelzle,  an  authority  on  the  subject,  in  the  follow- 
ing communication  which  he  furnished  me: 

According  to  the  defenders  of  the  saloon,  1,000,000 
workingmen  would  permanently  be  thrown  into  the  labor 
market  following  the  introduction  of  national  Prohibition. 
This  argument  is  based  entirely  upon  the  absurd  prop- 
osition that  if  the  liquor  dealers  fail  to  get  the  money 
now  spent  for  beer  and  whisky  nobody  else  will  get  it. 
It  is  assumed  that  if  a  man  does  not  spend  a  dollar 
for  booze  he  will  throw  that  dollar  into  the  sewer  or 
into  some  kind  of  a  bottomless  pit,  instead  of  using  it 
to  purchase  some  other  commodity  which  will  do  good 
instead  of  harm,  which  will  have  a  permanent  value, 
and  which  will  give  the  workingmen  of  the  country 
more  work,  more  wages,  and  gr^are'*  prosperity^  every 
way  than  if  the  same  amount  of  money  were  spent  for 
beer  and  whisky. 

For  every  $1,000,000  invested  in  the  average  industry, 
practically  four  times  as  much  raw  material  is  required, 
four  times  as  much  wages  are  paid,  and  four  times  as 
many  workers  are  employed  as  is  the  case  in  the  liquor 
industry. 

The  figures  given  by  the  liquor  interests  as  to  the 
number  of  men  who  would  be  affected  by  the  abolition 
of  the  liquor  traffic  are  greatly  exaggerated.  The  Census 
Report  of  1910  tells  us  that  in  all  manufacturing  indus- 
tries there  were  then  employed  6,616,046  persons.  The 
liquor  industry  employed  62,920,  or  just  about  one  per 
cent,  of  the  total.  But  of  this  number  only  about  15,000 
were  brewers  and  maltsters,  distillers  and  rectifiers.  The 
remainder  of  the  62,920  were  employed  as  engineers, 


102     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

carpenters,  machinists,  teamsters,  bottlers,  etc. — occupa- 
tions which  are  not  at  all  peculiar  to  the  liquor  business. 
There  were  more  teamsters  employed  than  there  were 
brewers  and  maltsters,  distillers  and  rectifiers. 

There  are  about  100,000  bartenders  in  the  United 
States.  What  will  become  of  these  when  the  saloon  is 
abolished?  What  is  it  that  makes  a  successful  bartender? 
It  is  his  ability  as  a  salesman,  and  a  man  who  is  a  good 
bartender  will  make  a  good  clerk  or  salesman  in  prac- 
tically any  other  kind  of  business.  Furthermore,  it  re- 
quires many  more  people  to  sell  $2,000,000,000  worth 
of  bread  and  clothing,  for  example,  than  it  does  to  sell 
liquor  of  the  same  value.  And  it  is  more  likely  that 
at  least  as  many  salaried  employees,  such  as  traveling 
salesmen,  bookkeepers,  and  stenographers,  will  be  em- 
ployed, 

But. what  ?bout  the*  15,000  or  so  brewers  and  malt- 
sters, distillers  and  rectifiers?  They  will,  of  necessity, 
be  compelled  to  adjust  themselves  to  changed  conditions. 
But  this  does  not  mean  that  they  will  either  go  adrift 
or  cause  a  labor  panic.  The  constantly  changing  situa- 
tion in  the  industrial  world  in  this  country  often  compels 
men  to  transfer  from  one  occupation  to  another,  many 
of  them  being  required  to  learn  entirely  new  trades. 
Take,  for  illustration,  the  situation  when  the  Mergen- 
thaler  typesetting  machine  was  introduced.  The  printers 
thought  that  their  trade  was  destroyed.  However,  they 
immediately  learned  how  to  run  typesetting  machines, 
with  the  result  that  today  there  are  more  printers  em- 
ployed than  ever  before,  and  they  are  receiving  higher 
wages  than  at  any  time  in  their  history.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  however,  more  workingmen  lose  their  jobs  because 


ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR  103 

saloons  are  open  than  would  be  the  case  were  the  saloons 
to  be  closed. 

As  somebody  put  it,  "When  liquor  puts  a  man  out  of 
a  job  it  unfits  him  for  another  job.  When  no-license 
puts  a  bartender  out  of  a  job,  it  makes  him  a  wealth- 
producing  workingman  instead  of  a  wealth-destroying 
workingman.  It  is  better  that  the  bartender  should  lose 
his  job  and  get  a  better  one  than  that  dozens  of  his 
patrons  should  lose  their  jobs  and  be  unfitted  for  any 
job." 

Big  business  has  no  more  right  to  demand 
abstinence  of  the  workingman  than  the  working- 
man  has  a  right  to  demand  abstinence  on  the  part 
of  the  employers  in  the  interest  of  the  same 
efficiency.  A  management  befuddled  with  alcohol 
is  as  bad  a  business  proposition  as  one  where  the 
growler  is  constantly  rushed  in  the  mill.  The  rich 
man  does  unjustly  and  unwisely  when  he  takes 
beer  away  from  his  workmen  and  has  champagne 
on  his  own  table.  It  is  a  blessing  to  take  the  beer 
from  the  workman.  It  will  be  as  great  a  blessing 
for  the  proprietor  to  cut  out  his  champagne  in 
the  interest  of  business  efficiency,  if  for  no,  higher 
motive.  Fortunately,  a  large  majority  of  the  cap- 
tains of  industry  are  abstainers  from  strong 
drink. 

This  fact  is  verified  by  the  economical  reasons 
which  Mr.  Edward  Bok,  Editor  of  the  Ladies9 
Home  Journal,  gives  for  being  a  total  abstainer. 
He  says: 


KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

As  I  looked  around  and  came  to  know  more  of  people 
and  things,  I  found  the  always  unanswerable  argument 
in  favor  of  a  young  man's  abstinence;  that  is,  that  the 
most  successful  men  in  America  today  are  those  who 
never  lift  a  wine-glass  to  their  lips.  Becoming  interested 
in  this  fact,  I  had  the  curiosity  to  inquire  personally  into 
it.  I  found  that  of  twenty-eight  of  the  leading  men  in 
the  country,  whose  names  I  selected  at  random,  twenty- 
two  never  touch  a  drop  of  wine.  I  made  up  rny  mind 
that  there  was  some  reason  for  this.  If  liquor  brought 
safe  pleasure,  why  did  these  men  abstain  from  it?  If, 
as  some  say,  it  is  a  stimulant  to  a  busy  man,  why  do  not 
these  men,  directing  the  largest  business  interests  in  the 
country,  resort  to  it?  And  when  I  saw  that  these  were 
men  whose  opinions  in  great  business  matters  were  ac- 
cepted by  the  leading  concerns  of  the  world,  I  concluded 
that  their  judgment  in  business  matters  could  command 
the  respect  and  attention  of  the  leaders  of  trade  on  both 
sides  of  the  sea,  and  their  decision  as  to  the  use  of  liquor 
was  not  apt  to  be  wrong. 


CARNEGIE  ADVISES  ABSTINENCE 

K  little  Scotch  boy  came  over  to  this  country. 
His  widowed  mother  was  poor  and  had  to  work 
hard  to  support  him.  When  a  mere  lad  he  struck 
out  to  earn  a  few  dollars  a  week  to  support  his 
mother.  And  Andrew  Carnegie  went  from  the 
foot  of  the  ladder  of  poverty  and  labor  to  the 
head  of  one  of  the  greatest  industrial  institutions 
in  the  world.  He  is  an  excellent  authority  on 


ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR  105 

the  value  of  abstinence  to  both  labor  and  capital, 
and  to  its  efficiency  in  all  the  callings  of  life. 

I  had  known  the  deep  interest  Mr.  Andrew 
Carnegie  had  in  the  war  on  King  Alcohol,  but 
had  not  realized  how  intense  was  his  hostility  to 
rum,  or  his  practical  labors  personally  to  prevent 
its  sale  or  use,  until  I  had  a  conversation  with  him 
at  his  Fifth  Avenue  home.  He  told  me  how  dan- 
gerous he  considered  strong  drink,  how  it  reduced 
the  physical,  mental  and  moral  efficiency  of  many, 
and  how  fatal  it  was  to  so  many  victims.  He 
said  it  harmed  everybody,  but  his  greatest  anxiety 
was  for  the  young  men  who  were  most  likely 
to  be  tempted  by  the  iniquitous  saloon,  and  who 
in  many  cases  would  be  destroyed  by  it. 

Mr.  Carnegie  has  made  a  permanent  record 
of  his  radical  temperance  views  in  an  address 
he  made  in  October,  1905,  in  Dundee,  Scotland, 
at  the  formal  opening  of  a  gymnasium  building 
in  connection  with  the  University  of  St.  Andrews, 
of  which  he  was  Lord  Rector.  This  address  of 
dedication  was  made  in  the  presence  of  many 
notable  men  in  business  and  professional  life, 
with  leading  representatives  of  the  educational 
institutions  of  that  country.  In  that  address  Mr. 
Carnegie  said  that  the  first  and  most  serious  habit 
was  the  use  of  alcoholics.  A  dangerous  habit 
very  likely  to  cause  grievous  results,  all  agreed; 
that  it  could  cause  no  beneficial  results  all  agreed. 
It  was  therefore  the  part  of  wisdom  to  abstain 


106     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

from  the  habit  that  might  work  evil  and  could 
do  no  good.  That  no  ill  effects  were  visible  from 
indulgence  during  the  vigorous  period  of  youth 
rendered  the  danger  of  serious  consequences  in 
after  life  still  greater  than  if  the  ill  effects  were 
visible  from  the  beginning.  They  were  playing 
with  an  insidious  foe.  Viewing  them  as  young 
steeds  training  for  the  race  of  life,  he  knew  of 
no  one  habit  so  likely  to  defeat  them  in  the  con- 
test as  the  drinking  of  alcoholic  liquors.  That 
taken  in  excess,  they  destroyed  the  character  of 
men  and  rendered  them  useless  members  of  so- 
ciety, they  all  knew.  The  line  between  excess  and 
sufficiency  was  so  narrow  that  it  was  very  seldom 
the  drinker  knew  and  observed  it.  Better  be  on 
the  safe  side.  Why  run  into  danger?  As  no 
possible  good  could  result  from  indulgence,  no 
risk  should  be  incurred.  In  the  stern  game  of 
life  they  had  all  to  play,  they  could  afford  to 
throw  no  advantages  away.  He  did  not  wish 
to  preach  to  them.  He  put  the  case  to  them 
simply  as  a  matter  of  policy.  Drink  was  the 
greatest  danger  in  front  of  them,  aeainst  which 
they  could  protect  themselves  completely  in  the 
campaign  of  life  by  a  firm  resolution  of  absti- 
nence. It  was  good  sense  for  them  to  do  so. 
Drunkenness  was  the  great  rock  ahead  in  the 
career  of  every  young  man.  It  was  far  more 
important  that  he  insure  himself  against  it  than 
against  death.  A  drink  policy  was  worth  ten 


ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR  107 

life  policies  in  their  case.     Abstain  and  avoid  the 
danger. 

In  another  address  to  young  men  Mr.  Carnegie 
has  said: 

The  first  and  most  seductive  peril,  and  the  destroyer 
of  most  young  men,  is  the  drinking  of  liquor.  I  am  no 
temperance  lecturer  in  disguise,  but  a  man  who  knows 
and  tells  you  what  observation  has  proved  to  him;  and 
I  say  to  you  that  you  are  more  likely  to  fail  in  your 
career  from  acquiring  the  habit  of  drinking  liquor  than 
from  all  other  temptations  likely  to  assail  you.  You 
may  yield  to  almost  any  other  temptation  and  reform — 
may  brace  up  and,  if  not  recover  lost  ground,  at  least 
remain  in  the  race,  and  secure  and  maintain  a  respectable 
position.  But  from  the  insane  thirst  for  liquor  escape 
is  almost  impossible.  I  have  known  but  few  exceptions 
to  this  rule. 

Mr.  Carnegie  handed  me  a  copy  of  his  book, 
"Problems  of  To-day,"  saying,  "On  pages  10  and 
n,  in  my  chapter  on  *  Wealth,'  you  will  find  my 
views  on  the  damage  of  drink  to  the  working- 
man."  This  is  the  passage  to  which  he  refers  : 

The  dire  consequences  resulting  from  the  use  of  liquor 
would  justify  much  higher  taxation  upon  it  in  the  interest 
of  the  workers  themselves.  The  greatest  single  evil  in 
Britain  to-day  is  intemperance.  Seven  hundred  and  eighty- 
five  million  dollars  yearly  is  the  drink  bill.  How  much 
of  this  is  paid  by  the  working  classes  is,  we  believe, 
unknown;  but  even  if  it  be  only  one-half,  here  is  three 


io8     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

hundred  and  ninety-two  and  a  half  millions  worse  than 
wasted  by  them.  The  liquor  interests  have  now  received 
title  to  their  drinking  places,  when  before  they  had  only 
licenses  from  year  to  year — a  present  made  to  them,  as 
estimated  by  some,  equal  to  fifteen  hundred  million  dol- 
lars. When  one  asks  himself  what  would  most  benefit 
the  worker,  there  is  no  hesitation  in  the  reply — to  avoid 
liquor  and  gambling.  The  workingman  who  indulges 
in  either  is,  to  the  extent  he  does  so,  the  architect  of  his 
own  poverty.  Here  is  the  issue  of  greatest  moment  to 
the  workingmen.  One  cannot  help  those  who  do  not 
help  themselves.  One  man  cannot  push  another  up  a 
ladder.  The  moment  he  releases  his  grasp  the  assisted 
one  falls.  It  is  only  possible  to  really  help  those  who 
co-operate  with  the  helper.  It  is  not  the  submerged 
but  the  swimming  tenth  that  can  be  steadily  and  rapidly 
improved  by  the  aid  of  their  fellows.  The  former  should 
be  the  special  care  of  the  State,  and  should  be  isolated. 

As  I  bade  Mr.  Carnegie  good-by,  he  said:  "I 
will  treat  you  as  I  do  the  rest  of  my  visitors  and 
give  you  my  personal  card."  This  was  the  card: 
Printed  in  large  letters  at  the  top,  "Andrew  Car- 
negie on  the  Curse  of  Drink" ;  and  this  was  under- 
neath, printed  pretty  nearly  as  large: 

The  curse  of  drink  is  the  cause  of  more  failures  in 
life  than  anything  else,  and  while  it  may  be  possible 
to  surmount  any  other  faulty  habit,  the  man  who  is  a 
confirmed  drinker  has  not  one  chance  in  a  million  of 
success  in  life.  Liquor  will  conquer  you  a  million  chances 
to  one  if  you  give  it  sway. 


ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR  109 

On  thinking  with  gratitude  and  joy  over  the 
visit  and  what  it  revealed,  I  wondered  whether 
his  testimony  to  the  damage  of  liquor  would  not 
be  stronger  than  the  testimony  of  the  brewers  and 
distillers  and  saloonkeepers  who  hold  that  drink 
is  food,  is  good  for  the  body  and  mind,  and  will 
not  hinder  but  promote  success  in  life. 

Mr.  John  A.  Poynton,  Mr.  Carnegie's  com- 
petent and  courteous,  private  secretary,  confirmed 
a  rumor  I  had  heard  that  Mr.  Carnegie  has  a 
rule  that  the  men  on  his  large  estate  of  Skibo, 
Scotland,  who  abstain  from  liquor  during  the 
year  receive  a  bonus  of  ten  per  cent,  on  their 
salary.  I  asked  what  number  of  the  men  em- 
ployed on  the  estate  were  included  in  the  propo- 
sition, and  the  answer  was,  uEvery  mother's  son 
of  them."  Mr.  Poynton  continued:  uln  all  indus- 
trial enterprises  he  never  ceased  to  hammer  home 
the  total  abstinence  policy  to  his  workmen  and 
heads  of  departments,  in  every  way  possible.  He 
has  rarely  made  an  address  or  written  a  pamphlet 
or  book  without  frequent  references  to  the  desira- 
bility of  leaving  liquor  alone." 

Besides  Mr.  Carnegie's  keen  individual  interest 
in  this  subject,  he  takes  a  wide  view  of  the  subject 
and  contributes  generously  to  the  cause.  He  told 
me  once  that  he  not  only  contributed  money  to 
fight  the  saloon  in  this  country,  but  that  he  also 
gave  cheerfully  to  the  cause  in  other  lands  in  the 
hope  that  there  would  be  a  speedy  and  complete 


no  KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

elimination  of  the  liquor  traffic  in  this  country  and 
throughout  the  world,  that  peace,  sobriety,  pros- 
perity, happiness  and  usefulness  might  universally 
prevail. 

THE   FARMERS   FOR  PROHIBITION 

The  farmers  are  pretty  nearly  solid  against  the 
saloon.  They  fight  it  because  it  damages  farm 
labor,  and  also  because  it  corrupts  public  morals. 
The  farmers  used  to  befriend  drink.  Within  the 
memory  of  some  men  the  whisky-barrel  was  in 
every  country  store,  and  the  "little  brown  jug" 
in  every  country  home.  Especially  did  they  use 
liquor  in  harvest  time,  to  prevent  sunstroke,  they 
said.  An  old  man  told  me  that  he  cut  and  hewed 
the  logs  for  his  new  home  in  the  West  and  sawed 
the  joints  to  fit,  and  set  the  day  for  the  neighbors 
to  come  in  to  help  with  the  log-raising.  He  said 
he  was  one  of  the  few  in  that  rural  neighborhood 
who  was  a  total  abstainer,  and  did  not  provide 
the  whisky  that  was  always  in  evidence  on  such 
occasions.  The  men  refused  to  lift  a  log,  and  he 
had  to  send  out  and  get  a  supply  of  grog  before 
a  hand  was  moved.  They  said  he  was  mean 
and  discourteous,  and  that  as  they  donated  their 
labor  they  thought  the  least  he  could  do  was  to 
set  up  the  refreshment.  It  was  a  common  sight 
to  see  a  splendid  young  man  spend  years  of  hard 
work  to  get  a  farm,  and  then  drink  it  up  at  the 


ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR  in 

crossroads  grocery,  and  go  to  disgrace  and  the 
grave. 

The  annual  meeting  of  the  National  Grange  in 
Washington  declared  for  Prohibition  for  the 
farmers  and  demanded  the  passage  of  the  Na- 
tional Constitutional  Prohibition  measure  and  its 
ratification  by  the  States.  The  farmers  with 
their  families  number  20,000,000  of  our  hard- 
working people,  and  the  action  at  Washington 
has  considerable  political  as  well  as  moral  sig- 
nificance. The  liquor  men  who  have  talked  so 
flippantly  about  the  green  "country  Jakes"  being 
the  only  ones  against  them  know  that  it  is  the 
ax  of  the  farmer  on  election  days  that  is  doing 
so  much  to  chop  down  their  business. 


ABSTINENCE   FOR   SOLDIERS 

Colonel  L.  M.  Maus,  Assistant  Surgeon  Gen- 
eral of  the  United  States  army,  retired,  delivered 
an  address  before  the  American  Medical  Society 
for  the  Study  of  Alcohol  and  Narcotics,  from 
which  I  quote  the  following  statements  regarding 
abstinence  in  the  army : 

In  order  to  attain  success  in  war,  as  well  as  in  other 
walks  of  professional  life,  the  individual  must  preserve 
his  general  health,  which  is  the  keynote  to  efficiency  and 
success;  and  from  an  experience  of  over  forty  years  as  an 
army  medical  officer,  I  know  of  no  factor  which  con- 


H2  KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

tributes  more  to  the  general  health  and  efficiency  than 
total  abstinence. 

During  one  of  General  Wolseley's  campaigns,  he 
divided  some  of  his  men  into  squads  for  marching  ex- 
periments. The  first  squad  was  given  a  daily  ration  of 
whisky,  the  second  a  ration  of  beer,  and  the  third  water. 
At  first  the  whisky  squad  marched  gaily  ahead,  but  was 
soon  overtaken  by  the  beer  squad,  which  in  turn  was 
passed  by  the  water  squad.  The  water  squad  followed 
an  even  gait,  and  after  passing  both  whisky  and  beer 
squads,  reached  its  destination  long  before  its  competitors. 

Lord  Kitchener  allowed  his  men  no  spirits  whatso- 
ever during  his  campaign  in  the  Soudan.  Lord  Roberts 
was  equally  firm  in  encouraging  abstinence  from  alcohol. 
Dr.  Wahlberg,  surgeon-in-chief  of  the  Finnish  army  dur- 
ing 1877-8,  said  non-drinkers  endured  better,  and  that 
the  old  drinkers  were  the  first  men  to  break  down. 

The  Boers,  whose  endurance  was  generally  commented 
upon  favorably,  used  neither  spirits  nor  beer.  Sir  Fred- 
erick Treves,  who  served  at  Ladysmith,  says  that  the 
drinking  men  fell  out  and  dropped  as  regularly  as  if 
they  were  labeled  with  the  big  letter  "D"  on  their  backs. 

During  the  Swedish  alcoholic  investigation  among 
soldiers,  a  number  of  picked  non-commissioned  officers 
and  men  were  selected  for  rifle  practice.  The  tests  cov- 
ered a  number  of  days,  part  of  which  time  the  men 
were  tried  out  with  small  quantities  of  alcohol,  about 
1^2  ounces  of  brandy.  When  alcohol  was  taken  dur- 
ing the  quick  fire,  the  hits  were  thirty  per  cent,  less, 
though  the  men  imagined  they  were  firing  quicker.  Dur- 
ing slow  aiming,  the  difference  was  fifty  per  cent,  in  favor 
of  abstaining  days. 


ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR  113 

During  the  marching  test,  some  of  the  men  were 
allowed  alcohol,  while  others  were  deprived  of  its  use. 
The  drinking  men  were  found  inferior  in  marching  and 
enduring  qualities;  besides,  all  the  sunstrokes  and  heat 
exhaustions  occurred  among  the  drinking  classes.  As  a 
result  of  these  series  of  experiments  the  Austrian  soldier 
is  not  allowed  to  carry  brandy  on  his  person,  as  was 
previously  the  case. 

The  use  of  alcohol  as  a  beverage  among  troops  con- 
tributes more  to  camp  diseases  and  detracts  more  from 
efficiency  than  even  poor  camp  sanitation.  This  was  true 
during  the  recent  Spanish  war  and  the  Philippine  insur- 
rection. Especially  was  this  true  of  diseases  which  stood 
for  years  at  the  top  of  camp  diseases  due  to  immorality 
in  our  army,  and  it  became  a  subject  of  congressional 
discussion. 

During  1898-1902  the  Government  permitted  the  un- 
limited introduction  and  distribution  of  all  kinds  of  alco- 
holic beverages  among  the  army  of  70,000  regular  and 
volunteer  troops  which  were  on  duty  in  the  islands  dur- 
ing that  period,  as  a  result  of  which  the  admission  rate 
to  sick  report  ran  up  four  or  five  times  as  high  as  the 
present  rate  in  the  United  States. 

While  a  large  amount  of  the  sickness  was  no  doubt 
due  to  climatic  influences  and  poor  sanitation,  at  least 
fifty  per  cent,  of  the  excess  was  due  to  the  use  of  alcohol. 
Hundreds  of  the  men  were  invalided  home  on  account 
of  intestinal  and  stomach  troubles,  insanity,  neurasthenia 
and  other  forms  of  neurosis,  due  more  or  less  to  alcohol, 
ninety-five  per  cent,  of  whom  recovered  before  they  had 
reached  San  Francisco,  during  the  month's  voyage  of 
return. 


ii4     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Besides  sickness  and  loss  of  efficiency  in  the  army  as 
a  result  of  alcohol,  we  know  that  practically  all  of  the 
crimes  and  military  offenses  committed  in  military  circles 
are  due  to  the  use  of  intoxicants.  All  of  the  murders, 
suicides,  court-martials,  and  dismissals  of  officers,  prison 
and  guard-house  desertions  are  usually  confined  to  the 
drinking  element. 

From  a  careful  study  of  the  effects  of  alcohol  on  the 
human  organism  I  find  that: 

1.  As  a  beverage  it  lowers  all  the  mental   faculties, 
such  as  judgment,  memory,  perception,  thought,  compari- 
son, caution,  and  quickness  of  action. 

2.  It   lessens   working   capacity,    marching   endurance, 
accuracy  and  rapidity  in  rifle  firing,  ability  to  command 
troops  or  navigate  ships,  to  act  as  members  of  military 
courts  or  boards,  or  to  perform  the  higher  administrative 
duties  of  official  life. 

3.  It   causes   sickness,    impairs   health   and   usefulness, 
adds   greatly  to   the   non-efficiency  of  officers  and  men, 
increases  the  burden  of  the  medical  department  in  time 
of  peace  and  war,   deprives  the  government  frequently 
of  the  services  of  those  who  drink,  and  increases  unneces- 
sarily the  retired  and  pension  lists  of  the  army  and  navy. 

4.  It  lowers  the  moral  standard,  lessens  self-restraint, 
and    is   productive    of   unreliability,    untruthfulness,    dis- 
honesty and  crime. 

The  United  States  Government  shares  these 
opinions  of  Colonel  Maus,  and  by  legislative 
action  shields  our  noble  soldiers  and  sailors  from 
the  curse  of  drink. 


ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR  115 

ABSTINENCE    FOR    SAILORS 

Admiral  Dewey,  a  short  time  before  he  died, 
put  himself  unequivocally  on  record  as  to  the 
value  of  abstinence  to  the  officers  and  men  of  the 
United  States  Navy.  The  record  was  in  an 
interview  by  George  Creel  for  the  New  York 
World.  The  Admiral  gave  his  opinion  about 
the  uwine  mess"  in  answer  to  the  question,  uWhat 
about  the  famous  drinking  order?" 

"A  good  thing!"  His  answer  was  instant. 
"There  was  some  feeling  about  it  at  first,  because 
the  papers  made  fun  of  it,  and  there  was  also 
an  attempt  to  make  it  appear  that  Secretary 
Daniels  was  charging  officers  with  intemperance. 
I  think  that  the  feeling  has  disappeared  com- 
pletely. Every  railroad,  every  great  corporation, 
has  long  had  an  ironclad  rule  forbidding  men  to 
drink  while  on  duty.  Isn't  a  ship  as  important 
as  a  locomotive?  Practically  every  European 
power  has  copied  the  order,  by  the  way." 

At  this  point  Admiral  Dewey  handed  to  Mr. 
Creel  an  article  by  Hector  Bywater,  the  famous 
naval  expert,  written  for  a  British  journal,  after 
a  careful  study  of  the  American  navy.  The  Ad- 
miral had  the  following  paragraph  marked: 
"Those  best  qualified  to  speak  assert  that  the  last 
four  years  have  witnessed  a  remarkable  all- 
around  improvement  in  the  quality  of  the  per- 
sonnel. Thanks  to  the  Secretary's  drastic  order 


n6  KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

shortly  after  he  came  into  office,  intemperance  has 
disappeared  from  the  navy,  and  although  the 
drink  prohibition  excited  ridicule  and  bitter  oppo- 
sition at  the  time,  the  majority  of  naval  officers 
now  agree  that  it  has  had  a  most  beneficial  effect 
on  efficiency  and  discipline." 

"Do  you  stand  for  that?"  Mr.  Creel  asked, 
looking  up  after  reading  the  paragraph  aloud. 

"I  would  be  dishonest  if  I  didn't,"  the  Admiral 
answered. 

The  learned  professions  as  well  as  the  indus- 
trial world  are  fighting  rum  on  the  ground  of 
efficiency  as  well  as  of  principle. 

DR.    ELIOT   BECOMES   ABSTAINER 

For  a  generation  the  liquor  men  have  been 
quoting  Doctor  Charles  W.  Eliot,  president  eme- 
ritus of  Harvard,  as  their  friend  and  champion. 
Hence  my  surprise  when  I  saw  his  name  among 
those  asking  for  Prohibition  during  the  war  as 
an  economic  measure.  I  wrote  Doctor  Eliot  ask- 
ing him  if  he  would  not  write  me  his  views  on  the 
liquor  problem  generally  for  my  book.  He  at 
once  sent  me  the  specially  prepared  essay  which 
I  have  set  down  bodily  in  this  volume.  It  will 
astound  and  confound  the  liquor  people  as  much 
as  it  will  surprise  and  delight  the  friends  of  Pro- 
hibition. In  the  commnnication  Doctor  Eliot  an- 
nounces to  the  public  that  he  reversed  the  views 


ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR  117 

of  a  lifetime  on  the  drink  problem,  after  he  was 
eighty  years  of  age.  This  is  his  remarkable  and 
powerful  essay,  which  is  a  temperance  library  on 
one  shelf,  in  a  single  book: 

My  opinion  about  war  prohibition  is  that  the  law 
should  prohibit  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  distilled 
spirits  as  a  beverage;  but  that  it  should  permit  the  manu- 
facture of  beer  containing  not  more  than  two  per  cent, 
of  alcohol.  Such  beer  is  not  intoxicating,  no  matter  in 
what  quantity  it  is  swallowed ;  and  yet  it  tastes  and  smells 
like  beer.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  safe  to  permit 
the  manufacture  and  sale  of  beers  and  wines  in  general; 
because  they  may  easily  be  taken  in  quantities  which 
diminish  the  self-control  of  the  person  who  drinks  them 
freely.  Beers  and  wines  of  the  ordinary  strength  in 
alcohol  diminish  the  productiveness  of  workers  in  many, 
indeed  most,  of  the  national  industries  through  the  in- 
jurious effect  of  alcohol,  even  when  taken  in  moderate 
quantities,  on  accuracy  and  speed  in  manual  and  clerical 
labors. 

Until  the  United  States  went  to  war  with  Germany,  I 
had  never  advocated  a  prohibitory  law.  The  process  by 
which  I  have  arrived  at  that  advocacy  is  correctly  de- 
scribed as  follows: 

I  have  never  been  a  total  abstainer  in  any  part  of  my 
life,  until  within  two  months.  I  drank  beer  or  wine 
occasionally,  but  not  habitually,  and  never  perceived  that 
it  had  any  bad  effect  on  me.  Having  lived  about  forty 
summers  at  Mount  Desert  in  the  State  of  Maine,  I  saw 
the  very  serious  evils  which  have  there  accompanied  an 
imperfect  execution  of  a  prohibitory  law.  The  Maine 


n8  KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

law  did  good  in  communities  in  which  a  decided  majority 
were  opposed  to  any  use  of  alcoholic  drinks,  but  in  the 
larger  towns  and  summer  resorts  the  law  was  either  of 
no  effect,  or,  when  imperfectly  or  unfairly  enforced,  had 
a  bad  effect  on  the  administration  of  justice  and  the 
people's  respeGt  for  law  in  general.  I  have  therefore 
advocated  in  Massachussetts  and  elsewhere  a  local  option 
law,  and  have  witnessed  great  community  benefits  from 
local  Prohibition,  in  spite  of  the  well-known  difficulties 
created  for  no-license  towns  and  cities  by  the  contiguity 
of  towns  or  cities  whose  voters  were  in  favor  of  license. 

During  the  past  thirty  years  biological,  chemical,  and 
physiological  science  has  made  great  advances  in  respect 
to  knowledge  of  the  effects  of  alcohol  on  the  human  body  ; 
and  in  recent  years  it  has  been  to  my  mind  demonstrated 
beyond  a  question  that  any  man  who  wishes  to  do  his  best 
work  with  brains  or  hands,  or  both,  is  better  off  without 
alcoholic  drinks,  even  the  mildest  forms,  than  with  them. 
I  have  thence  inferred  that  it  was  wiser  to  be  a  total 
abstainer  than  a  moderate  drinker.  Accuracy  and  speed 
are  reduced  by  even  moderate  doses  of  alcohol,  not  only 
in  factory  or  group  work,  but  also  in  individual  or  de- 
tached labor. 

During  my  fifty-five  years'  service  as  teacher  and  edu- 
cational administrator,  I  came  into  more  or  less  close 
contact  with  thousands  of  young  men  in  whose  subse- 
quent careers  I  took  an  interest.  Among  the  personal 
and  family  tragedies  which  have  come  to  my  knowledge 
have  been  some  which  have  occurred  not  from  the  habitual 
use  of  distilled  spirits  or  of  the  strong  wines  and  beers, 
but  from  the  occasional  use  of  the  milder  alcoholic  drinks 
in  quantity  sufficient  to  diminish  temporarily  the  drinker's 


ALCOHOL  AND  LABOR  119 

self-control.  While  in  that  condition,  young  men  of  good 
character,  whose  conduct  is  habitually  unexceptional,  can 
contract  disease  with  which  years  afterward  they  may 
infect  innocent  persons.  Of  course  hard  drinkers  are 
liable  to  the  same  disasters;  but  their  conduct  and  visible 
characteristics  warn  the  innocent,  so  that  the  worst 
tragedies  may  be  avoided. 

For  twenty  years  past  I  have  paid  much  attention  to 
the  subject  of  social  hygiene;  and  these  studies  have  shown 
me  that  drinking  alcohol  and  the  male  demand  for  pros- 
titution are  always  intimately  connected.  I  have  learned, 
too,  that  when  young  men  are  herded  together  in  camps 
and  barracks,  as  they  must  be  in  all  armies,  commer- 
cialized vice  is  always  rampant  in  their  neighborhood,  and 
requires  a  vigorous  repression  which  is  not  to  be  expected 
from  the  professional  soldiers  of  any  nation.  I  am  in- 
formed that  effectual  repression  was  not  provided  in  many 
of  the  cantonments  of  the  American  troops  on  the  Mex- 
ican border.  When  the  United  States  went  to  war  with 
Germany,  and  it  appeared  that  our  soldiers  would  soon 
be  serving  in  large  numbers  in  France,  I  thought  it  was 
high  time  to  provide  for  our  boys  such  protection  as  a 
national  prohibitory  law  can  give  them  in  their  training 
places  and  camps,  both  here  and  abroad. 

Since  I  was  eighty  years  old,  I  have  had  a  suspicion 
that  I  could  work  better  if  I  took  no  alcohol  at  all,  so 
last  May,  having  become  an  advocate  of  total  abstinence 
for  others,  I  became  a  total  abstainer  myself  with  much 
satisfaction. 

I  write  thus,  because  when  an  old  educator,  who  has 
always  opposed  prohibitory  laws,  changes  his  mind  and 
advocates  Prohibition,  it  is  fair  that  people  who  pay  any 


120     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

attention  to  his  exhortations  should  know  the  grounds 
or  reasons  for  his  change  of  opinion  and  conduct. 

JOSEPH    H.    CHOATE 

In  a  delightful  interview  I  had  with  Mr.  Joseph 
H.  Choate  in  his  home,  only  a  few  weeks  before 
his  death,  I  asked  him  as  the  President  of  the 
Associated  Charities  of  New  York  State,  and  as 
the  acknowledged  head  of  the  American  bar, 
what  he  considered  to  be  the  relation  between 
the  saloon  and  suffering  and  crime.  He  promptly 
replied  that  he  had  no  hesitation  in  saying  that 
much  of  the  suffering,  and  most  of  the  crime  of 
the  land,  can  be  traced  directly  to  the  saloon; 
the  most  conservative  possible  estimate  would  be 
50  per  cent,  of  the  suffering  and  50  per  cent,  of 
the  crime  are  the  direct  result  of  the  saloon. 

DR.    LYMAN  ABBOTT 

In  a  conversation  with  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott, 
whom  the  liquor  people  have  quoted  so  often  as 
friendly  to  them,  he  showed  me  statistics  to  prove 
the  success  of  Prohibition  in  Cornwall,  his  home 
town,  and  expressed  his  sympathy  with  the  move- 
ment to  drive  the  saloon  out  of  the  states  and 
nation. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN 

FOR  fifty  years  the  liquor  people  have 
claimed  Lincoln  as  their  friend  and 
champion,  and  have  featured  him  as  such 
in  their  advertisements  in  the  papers  and  in  their 
trade  circulars.  They  have  boldly  claimed  that 
Lincoln  used  intoxicating  drinks  and  that  he  had 
been  a  saloonkeeper.  From  year  to  year,  the  face 
of  dear  "Old  Abe,"  the  homeliest  to  the  eyes  of 
clay  but  handsomest  to  the  eye  of  the  spirit,  in 
all  the  commonwealth,  has  been  put  in  the  news- 
papers to  advertise  some  brand  of  whisky  or 
other  liquors.  The  liquor  dealers  did  so  partly 
because  they  made  much  of  the  "personal  lib- 
erty"  argument  in  defence  of  their  business,  and 
featured  the  Emancipator  as  the  chief  exponent 
of  freedom,  and  partly  because  with  their  be- 
fogged intellects  and  befuddled  consciences  they 
really  thought  that  Lincoln  had  been  one  of  their 
craft,  and  were  boasting  that  a  saloonkeeper  had 
gotten  to  be  President  of  the  United  States. 

For  half  a  century,   I  have  seen  that  lovely 
face  debauched  by  its  foul  setting  in  the  liquor 

121 


122     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

advertisements,  and  have  been  filled  with  anger 
and  contempt  at  the  sight.  I  have  felt  like  spit- 
ting on  the  page  that  was  debased  by  it,  and  have 
often  taken  my  knife  and  cut  out  this  picture 
advertisement  and,  tearing  it  into  pieces,  have 
thrown  it  into  the  waste  basket.  This  adver- 
tisement does  not  appear  as  frequently  as  it  used 
to;  for  the  personal  liberty  argument  for  liquor 
has  been  pretty  well  abandoned,  and  the  temper- 
ance sentiment  of  the  nation  has  grown  to  be  such 
that  the  people  count  it  an  impertinence,  if  not 
a  sacrilige,  to  use  the  face  of  so  great  and  good 
a  man  as  Lincoln  to  represent  so  low  and  dia- 
bolical a  business. 

What  are  the  historical  facts  which  give  the 
liquor  dealers  even  the  flimsiest  excuse  for  claim- 
ing Lincoln  as  their  friend  and  champion?  Sim- 
ply this:  When  Lincoln  was  twenty-four  years 
of  age,  he  concluded  to  try  the  mercantile  busi- 
ness in  New  Salem,  Illinois.  He  bought  an  in- 
terest in  a  country  store  and  had  as  his  partner 
a  man  by  the  name  of  Berry.  Country  stores  in 
those  times  almost  without  exception  kept  dry 
goods,  boots  and  shoes,  hats  and  caps,  sugar  and 
coffee  and  other  goods,  and  whisky.  I  myself 
remember  when  the  decent,  respectable  country 
stores,  almost  all  of  them,  kept  whisky,  which 
they  sold  with  no  more  compunction  of  conscience 
than  they  did  anything  else  they  had  in  stock. 

Lincoln  never  drank;  disliked  the  whisky  fea- 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     123 

ture  of  the  business;  protested  strongly  to  Berry 
against  it,  with  a  demand  for  its  removal;  and 
he  himself  declined  to  have  anything  practically 
to  do  with  that  part  of  the  business  or  be  charged 
with  any  of  its  responsibility.  And  he  told 
Leonard  Swett,  one  of  the  greatest  lawyers  of 
Chicago  and  America,  and  one  of  the  most  inti- 
mate friends  he  ever  had,  that  he  did  not  know 
the  taste  of  one  kind  of  liquor  from  another,  and 
that  the  main  reason  for  his  quarrel  with  Berry 
which  led  to  the  dissolution  of  the  partnership, 
was  that  Berry  would  not  consent  to  cut  the 
whisky  feature  out  of  the  store.  After  the  dis- 
solution of  the  partnership  Berry  went  off  and 
established  a  low  groggery,  answering  to  the 
meanest  saloon  of  to-day. 

Judge  Weldon,  a  warm  personal  friend  of 
mine,  said  that  he  was  in  a  hotel  at  Bloomington, 
Illinois,  one  day  when  Lincoln  called  on  Judge 
Douglas  in  a  personal,  courteous  visit.  Judge 
Douglas  took  out  his  flask,  as  was  his  custom  and 
the  custom  of  almost  everybody,  and  offered  Mr. 
Lincoln  a  drink,  who  thanked  him  but  declined, 
stating,  "Judge,  I  do  not  drink  at  all." 

We  will  here  record  historical  facts  which 
prove  conclusively  that  Lincoln  was  a  total  ab- 
stainer all  his  life  from  boyhood,  and  that  he 
was  one  of  the  most  consistent,  persistent,  and 
powerful  enemies  the  liquor  traffic  in  America 
ever  had. 


124     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

MAJOR    JAMES    B.    MERWIN 

I  called  on  Major  James  B.  Merwin  at  his 
residence,  1732  Grove  street,  Brooklyn.  I  found 
him  an  invalid,  seated  in  an  easy  chair,  and  past 
eighty-four  years  of  age.  Major  Merwin  had 
been  very  close  to  Lincoln,  especially  during  the 
period  of  the  Civil  War,  working  in  harmony 
with  him  in  one  of  the  most  tragical  periods  of 
the  world's  history.  Whoever  was  really  close 
to  Lincoln  at  that  time  was  in  the  business  of 
empire-building,  and  Major  Merwin  was  one  of 
the  makers  of  history  in  the  second  place,  because 
he  was  one  of  those  "crank"  pioneer  Prohibition- 
ists who  started  the  greatest  moral  revolution  in 
the  temperance  line  in  six  thousand  years. 

"I  have  come  to  see  you,"  I  said,  "especially 
about  your  relation  to  Lincoln  in  the  war  against 
alcohol,  and  for  your  testimony  as  to  what  you 
know  personally  about  Lincoln's  temperance 
habits  and  the  immensely  efficient  service  he  ren- 
dered in  fighting  strong  drink." 

The  Major's  eyes  flashed,  his  face  shone  and 
he  became  younger  by  a  score  of  years  as  he 
said: 

"No  subject  on  earth  is  so  dear  as  the  one  you 
have  come  to  talk  with  me  about,  no  man  is  so 
precious  to  my  memory  as  Lincoln  and  no  work 
so  dear  as  that  in  which  we  were  engaged  so 
intimately  together.  You  will  do  me  a  personal 
favor  if  you  will  take  anything  I  may  say  to- 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     125 

night,  or  anything  that  I  may  have  said  at  any 
time,  arid  give  it  to  the  audience  you  will  have 
in  your  book,  and  let  my  humble  life  go  on  with 
its  mission  of  service  after  I  shall  have  been 
gathered  to  my  fathers. 

"The  tidal  wave  that  swept  so  many  States 
into  Prohibition  about  1850  carried  me  into  the 
warfare  on  liqi/or,"  the  Major  continued.  uAs 
a  young  man  I  felt  as  greatly  called  to  give  my 
life  to  the  work  of  saving  the  young  people  from 
the  ravages  of  drink  as  any  minister  could  be 
called  to  the  task  of  preaching  the  Gospel;  and 
I  began  my  mission,  which  I  considered  from 
God,  actively  in  the  contest  in  the  State  of  Con- 
necticut. Though  prepared  for  Amherst,  circum- 
stances prevented  my  going  to  college,  and  under 
this  new  divine  call  I  became  editor  of  the  "Foun- 
tain," a  temperance  organ  printed  in  Hartford, 
and  corresponding  secretary  of  the  Connecticut 
Temperance  Society.  After  the  Maine  law  had 
been  passed  we  undertook  to  have  a  similar  law 
passed  in  Connecticut,  and  I  led  in  the  nonparti- 
san  and  interdenominational  fight  to  secure  that 
law.  I  enlisted  among  our  corps  of  speakers 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Horace  Greeley,  P.  T. 
Barnum,  and  others;  Neal  Dow  himself  appeared 
before  our  Legislature,  and  after  a  fierce  fight 
the  Prohibition  Law  was  passed. 

"At  an  enthusiastic  meeting,  before  the  passage 
of  the  law,  a  citizen  of  Springfield,  Illinois,  who 


126     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

either  happened  to  be  in  the  audience  or  was  sent 
by  the  temperance  people  of  Illinois  for  the  pur- 
pose, heard  me  speak  at  the  meeting,  and  at  the 
close  of  the  exercises  he  said  to  me,  'When  this 
work  is  over,  if  you  will  come  out  to  Springfield 
and  make  just  the  same  kind  of  an  address  to 
our  citizens  that  you  made  to-night,  I  will  not  only 
be  responsible  for  your  expenses,  but  will  see  that 
you  have  proper  compensation  for  your  time  as 
well/ 

"After  we  had  won  out  in  Connecticut  I  went 
out  to  Springfield,  Illinois,  and  my  coming  had 
been  widely  prepared  for;  it  was  heralded  in  the 
papers,  great  care  was  taken  to  announce  the 
meeting  by  handbills,  and  as  the  Legislature  was 
not  in  session,  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  State  Capitol  was  secured.  The 
hall  was,  filled  with  people,  and  I  thought  I  had 
a  measureably  good  time  describing  the  substance 
of  the  Maine  law,  the  fight  we  had  made  at  our 
State  capital,  the  damage  of  drink  to  the  com- 
munity, and  especially  to  the  young,  and  the  ne- 
cessity of  having  a  law  that  would  put  an  end 
to  the  vice  rather  than  license  it  to  do  its  destruc- 
tion for  cold  money.  My  address  at  the  close 
was  heartily  applauded,  and  as  I  supposed  the 
meeting  was  over,  there  came  a  call  here  and 
there,  all  over  the  house,  'Lincoln !  Lincoln !  Lin- 
coln !'  and  it  grew  louder  until  there  was  universal 
demand  for  'Lincoln.1  Not  knowing  the  gentle- 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     127 

man  that  was  called  for,  I  wondered  what  he 
would  look  like,  but  did  not  wonder  long,  for 
just  to  my  left  a  homely,  tall  man  got  himself  up 
out  of  a  very  low  chair.  As  he  unfolded  his  long 
arms  and  longer  legs  and  walked  to  the  platform 
I  shall  never  forget  the  feeling  that  came  over 
me,  and  when  this  unique,  unkempt  individual 
took  his  place  to  speak,  I  was  more  than  half 
afraid  he  was  out  of  the  enemy's  camp  and  going 
to  tear  what  I  had  said  to  pieces,  or  that  he  was 
some  man  who  had  invited  himself  to  tone  down 
and  temper  something  that  had  been  said.  All 
doubt  fled  from  my  mind  when,  as  he  placed  his 
hands  on  the  secretary's  desk,  he  began  a  talk 
which  lasted  twenty  minutes,  taking  as  his  theme 
the  law,  its  majesty,  and  its  necessity  in  protect- 
ing the  home,  the  Church  and  the  State.  He  said 
law  was  never  made  for  the  protection  of  wrong 
but  for  the  protection  of  the  right  and  the  pre- 
vention and  punishment  of  the  wrong.  He  said 
that  splendid  public  sentiment  had  been  made  by 
the  Washingtonian  total  abstinence  movement, 
which  he  had  so  heartily  commended  in  his  pub- 
lic addresses,  and  rejoiced  that  while  some  had 
broken  the  pledge  and  gone  back  to  their  bad 
habits,  numbers  had  also  remained  faithful. 
'But,'  he  said,  Ve  have  come  to  the  place  in  the 
history  of  this  movement  where  it  is  necessary 
to  have  the  powerful  hand  of  the  law  to  keep 
back  this  giant  evil  and  protect  the  men,  the 


128     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

women  and  the  children  against  the  damages  of 
the  liquor  traffic.'  Greeley  had  made  level- 
headed and  convincing  Prohibition  speeches  in  our 
campaign  in  Connecticut,  and  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  with  his  fervid  eloquence  had  carried 
everything  by  storm  in  our  great  gatherings;  but 
I  never  had  heard  till  that  night  in  Springfield, 
nor  do  I  ever  remember  to  have  heard  since,  any- 
thing so  powerful  as  Lincoln's  twenty  minutes 
on  the  necessity  for  a  prohibitory  law  in  the  State 
of  Illinois. 

"The  silence  was  so  great  that  the  heartbeats 
of  the  audience  could  almost  be  heard,  and  the 
impression  on  the  audience  was  profound  beyond 
expression.  At  the  close  of  this  address,  this 
same  Mr.  Lincoln,  of  whom  I  had  never  heard, 
but  who  was  pretty  much  of  a  character  to  me 
by  the  hour's  experience,  came  up  to  me,  thanked 
me  for  my  message,  expressed  the  hope  that  I 
might  find  permanent  employment  in  leading  the 
campaign  in  Illinois  as  I  had  done  in  Connecti- 
cut, and  asked  me  if  I  would  not  go  home  with 
him  and  he  his  guest  for  the  night,  which  invita- 
tion I  gladly  accepted.  We  were  both  so  full  of 
the  subject  of  temperance  and  so  anxious  for  its 
success  in  the  country  and  State  that  we  talked 
and  talked  and  talked  until  about  daylight  before 
we  went  to  bed. 

"The  fight  was  conducted  by  the  Illinois  State 
Maine  Law  Alliance,  and  it  was  under  the  aus- 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     129 

pices  of  that  Association  and  as  secretary  of  it, 
that  I  went  into  the  campaign,  in  which  I  had 
Lincoln  as  my  strong  right  arm.  I  got  Lincoln 
to  write  the  prohibitory  bill  that  was  to  be  voted 
upon.  After  he  had  drafted  it  he  said,  'There, 
I  think  that  will  hold  water,  but  what  I  want  to 
know  is  whether  it  will  hold  whisky' ;  and  he 
named  twenty  or  twenty-five  of  the  finest  lawyers 
of  the  State  and  had  me  go  to  them  with  the 
draft  he  had  made  to  see  whether  the  law  would 
be  declared  good  by  the  courts  in  case  the  people 
should  vote  for  it.  Lincoln  was  a  great  cam- 
paigner, and  among  other  speakers  whom  I 
booked  for  the  State  contest  we  had  none  so 
strong  as  Lincoln,  who  made  at  least  thirty  ad- 
dresses in  favor  of  Prohibition.  There  is  this 
to  say  about  Mr.  Lincoln's  speeches:  they  were 
never  vituperative,  never  bitter  in  personal  de- 
nunciation. He  did  not  pour  out  volleys  of  hatred 
against  saloonkeepers;  he  claimed  that  society 
was  equally  guilty  in  licensing  them  to  do  their 
evil  work,  but  he  emphasized  the  danger  of  drink, 
the  complete  ruin  it  would  effect  in  the  case  of 
those  who  tampered  with  it,  the  tremendous  evils 
of  the  institution  of  the  saloon  in  destroying 
health,  usefulness,  happiness  and  life  itself,  and 
made  an  argument  which  was  positively  unanswer- 
able. 

"Lincoln  was  so  deeply  interested  in  the  fight 
that  he  helped  me  raise  money  for  it.  In  fact,  it 


i3o    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

was  through  his  personal  influence  mostly  that 
the  funds  necessary  for  carrying  on  the  campaign 
were  raised.  I  recall  well  this  incident:  Mr. 
William  B.  Ogden,  then  president  of  the  Chicago 
and  Northwestern  Railroad,  and  a  man  of  tre- 
mendous influence,  who  was  deeply  enlisted  in 
the  fight  for  no-license  in  the  State,  asked  me  to 
bring  Mr.  Lincoln  into  his  office  for  a  confer- 
ence as  to  the  most  efficient  method  of  carrying 
on  the  contest.  I  took  Mr.  Lincoln  to  his  office 
and  we  entered  seriously  and  heartily  into  the 
discussion  of  the  problem,  at  the  close  of  which 
Mr.  Ogden  wrote  out  his  personal  check  for 
$2,500  and,  handing  it  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  said: 
'If  you  need  more  money  come  back  to  me  and 
I  will  duplicate  that  check  cheerfully.  No 
greater  moral  warfare  could  be  conducted  than 
that  in  which  you  are  engaged,  and  I  am  so 
anxious  to  see  you  succeed.'  In  those  days,  you 
will  remember,  $2,500  was  as  much  in  proportion 
as  ten  or  even  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  would 
be  now. 

"Lincoln  personally  commanded  not  only  re- 
spect but  the  most  perfect  confidence,  and  money 
flowed  into  our  treasury,  through  him  as  the  chan- 
nel, sufficient  for  all  our  purposes. 

"Will  you  not  be  surprised  when  I  tell  you  that 
in  that  early  period  we  came  within  15,000  votes 
in  a  popular  election  of  carrying  Illinois  for 
Prohibition?" 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     131 

I  said  to  him,  "Major,  I  have  seen  you  exhibit 
the  gold  watch  which  you  received  as  a  souvenir 
at  the  close  of  that  great  State  campaign  in  Illinois 
of  which  you  have  just  spoken.  Have  you  it 
handy?  I  should  like  to  see  it  at  close  range." 

He  called  for  it  and  passed  it  over  to  me.  I 
opened  one  side  of  the  watch  and  found  Lincoln's 
picture  in  it;  I  also  opened  the  other  and  found 
this  inscription  cut  into  the  case:  "Presented  by 
the  friends  of  temperance  in  Chicago  to  J.  B. 
Merwin,  Corresponding-secretary  of  the  Illinois 
Maine  Law  Alliance,  as  a  token  of  their  confi- 
dence and  regard  for  his  untiring  energy  and  per- 
severance in  its  campaign  of  1855  for  Prohibi- 
tion." 

Tears  came  into  the  old  man's  eyes  as  he  said, 
"Doctor,  just  to  think  that  Lincoln  wrote  that 
inscription  himself  without  any  solicitation  or 
prompting  upon  the  part  of  any  one  else,  and  I 
have  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  his  own  sug- 
gestion, personally,  that  led  to  the  gift  of  the 
watch  and  the  little  ceremony  of  presentation." 

"Major  Merwin,  please  tell  me  about  your  as- 
sociation with  Lincoln  in  temperance  work  during 
the  period  of  the  Civil  War." 

"At  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War  I  was  agent 
of  the  Michigan  State  Temperance  Alliance,  with 
my  headquarters  in  Detroit.  I  received  a  letter 
from  Mr.  Lincoln,  asking  me  to  come  to  Wash- 
ington and  see  him.  He  said  to  me,  'Merwin, 


I32     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

you  have  done  important  temperance  work,  and 
I  know  what  its  quality  is  and  I  know  what 
you  are,  and  I  want  a  man  of  your  type  on  the 
ground  here  at  Washington  to  promote  the  cause 
of  temperance  amongst  our  soldiers  and  sailors. 
There  will  be  opportunity  for  you  to  make  ad- 
dresses here  and  there  at  the  soldiers  camps  and 
other  places,  but  I  want  you  especially  to  deal 
personally  with  the  men,  talk  to  them  like  a 
brother  and  try  and  protect  them  against  the 
drink  habit,  which  would  so  lessen  their  efficiency 
and  spoil  their  character.'  And  for  four  years 
I  was  engaged  in  that  specific  task.  Lieutenant' 
General  Winfield  Scott,  who,  next  to  Lincoln,  was 
the  head  of  the  army,  gave  me  a  letter  officially 
authorizing  the  specific  task  to  which  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  called  me.  I  preserved  a  fac-simile  of 
that  letter,  which  I  have  in  a  drawer  there,  and 
I  will  let  you  read  it." 

I  took  the  letter  and  read: 

I  esteem  the  mission  of  Mr.  Merwin  to  this  army  a 
Kappy  circumstance,  and  request  all  commanders  to  give 
him  free  access  to  their  camps  and  posts,  and  also  to  mul- 
tiply occasions  to  enable  him  to  address  our  officers  and 
men. 

WINFIELD  SCOTT. 

"That  was  in  1861,"  Major  Merwin  continued. 
"General  Scott  told  me  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
made  a  special  request  of  him  for  this  official 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     133 

commendation.  General  Scott  died  early  in  the 
contest,  as  you  know,  and  the  generals  did  not 
seem  to  want  to  pay  much  attention  to  his  old 
order  to  give  me  the  right  of  way  for  temperance 
work  among  the  soldiers,  and,  in  fact,  rather  put 
barriers  in  my  way,  as  they  presumed  I  was,  per- 
haps, a  crank,  and,  maybe,  in  the  way.  I  told 
Mr.  Lincoln  about  this  and  he  said,  'I  will  fix 
it  so  there  will  be  no  difficulty  in  the  premises/ 
and  he  issued  this  commission : 

The  Surgeon-General  will  send  Mr.  Merwin  wherever 
he  may  think  the  public  service  may  require. 

A.  LINCOLN. 

Major  Merwin  sent  for  the  original  order, 
and  I  held  it  in  my  fingers,  signed,  "A.  Lincoln." 

"You  see  it  is  written  in  Lincoln's  own  hand," 
the  Major  said,  uand  signed  with  his  own  pen; 
and  there  is  not  money  enough  in  all  the  States 
of  this  Union  to  buy  it.  At  my  death  that  is  to 
go  to  the  Anti-Saloon  League  to  be  deposited  in 
its  archives  as  an  immortal  heritage. 

"Lincoln  said  to  me  one  day,  'Merwin,  your 
work  of  temperance  is  so  benovelent  and  so  nearly 
like  that  of  the  Christian  ministry,  that  I  think 
you  ought  to  be  ordained  a  minister,  and  that 
will  give  you  the  special  right  of  way  to  the  hos- 
pitals and  hearts  of  men  in  a  little  more  intimate 
and  sacred  way.'  He  had  a  special  friend  in 


i34     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Adrian,  Michigan,  to  whom  he  wrote  and  asked 
him  if  he  would  not  bring  about  my  ordination, 
and  in  the  letter  he  added  this  little  piece  of 
humor,  so  like  him:  'When  you  ordain  him,  be 
sure  and  do  not  spoil  him.'  You  understand  that 
I  was  a  full-fledged  chaplain,  with  rank  as  such 
in  the  United  States  army,  and  I  did  the  work 
of  a  chaplain  often  and  have  official  endorsement 
of  that  branch  of  my  work,  but  Lincoln  said  to 
me,  'Do  not  forget  that  your  one  work  is  to 
hammer  into  the  minds  of  the  boys  the  necessity 
of  total  abstinence ;  do  not  stop  short  of  anything 
else  than  total  abstinence.'  One  of  the  sweetest 
memories  of  my  life  is  the  fact  that  Lincoln 
treated  me  as  a  chaplain  as  well  as  a  temperance 
reformer,  for  many  a  time,  in  his  private  office, 
we  have  bowed  down  and  prayed  to  the  God  of 
Heaven;  sometimes  I  would  lead  in  prayer  and 
sometimes  he  would  lead  in  prayer  himself,  and 
oh,  such  prayers,  as  that  giant  lifted  a  whole 
nation  up  in  his  arms  and  laid  it  upon  the  bosom 
of  the  Almighty,  and  how  agonizingly  did  he  ask 
God  to  lead  him  as  he  led  the  nation." 

"Major  Merwin,"  I  said,  "I  have  heard  you 
say  from  the  platform  several  times  that  the  last 
time  you  saw  Mr.  Lincoln  he  told  you  that  as 
General  Lee  had  surrendered,  and  slavery  had 
been  destroyed  and  the  Union  preserved,  the  next 
great  national  issue  would  be  the  destruction  of  the 
liquor  traffic.'1 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     135 

"I  can  give  you  the  substance,  and  about  the 
words,  that  Lincoln  spoke  to  me  that  day,"  the 
Major  replied,  uthey  made  such  a  deep  impres- 
sion upon  my  mind  that  I  never  shall  forget  them : 
4Merwin,  we  have  cleaned  up  with  the  help  of 
the  people  a  colossal  job.  Slavery  is  abolished. 
After  reconstruction,  the  next  great  question  will 
be  the  overthrow  and  abolition  of  the  liquor 
traffic;  and  you  know' — for  I  had  known  him 
since  1852  intimately — 'and  you  know,  Merwin, 
that  my  head  and  my  heart  and  my  hand  and  my 
purse  will  go  into  that  work.  In  1842 — less  than 
a  quarter  of  a  century  ago — I  predicted,  under 
the  influence  of  God's  Spirit,  that  the  time  would 
come  when  there  would  be  neither  a  slave  nor  a 
drunkard  in  the  land.  I  have  lived  to  see,  thank 
God,  one  of  those  prophecies  fulfilled.  I  hope 
to  see  the  other  realized.' 

"It  struck  me  as  so  important  a  statement  that 
I  said  to  him:  'Mr.  Lincoln,  shall  I  publish  this 
from  you?'  He  instantly  replied:  4Yes,  publish 
it  as  wide  as  the  daylight  shines.' 

"One  more  thing  I  would  like  to  have  you 
speak  about,  Major  Merwin,"  I  suggested,  "is 
that  Internal  Revenue  Act — I  might  honestly  say, 
'Infernal  Revenue  Act, — which  was  passed  by 
Congress  during  the  war  to  tax  the  liquor  business 
in  this  country  for  a  war  revenue.  You  have 
said  publicly  that  Lincoln  signed  that  bill  with 
great  hesitation." 


136     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

The  Major  said:  "I  heard  Salmon  P.  Chase, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  one  of  the  best  men 
the  country  has  produced,  say  to  Mr.  Lincoln: 
'We  have  got  to  have  the  resources  of  evil  as 
well  as  good  to  end  this  rebellion,  and  we  must 
have  the  resources.'  The  President  hesitated  and 
hesitated,  and  said,  'I  don't  want  to  sign  it.'  Mr. 
Chase  said,  'Mr.  Lincoln,  the  strain  is  so  great 
we  cannot  stand  it  much  longer,  and  this  is  an 
actual  necessity.'  'Very  well,'  said  Mr.  Lincoln 
to  Henry  Wilson  and  Mr.  Chase  in  my  presence, 
'I  had  rather  lose  my  right  hand  than  sign  a 
document  that  shall  perpetuate  the  liquor  traffic, 
but  as  soon  as  the  exigencies  pass  away,  I  will 
turn  my  whole  attention  to  the  repeal  of  that 
document,'  and  that  I  know  was  his  design,  for 
he  told  me  so,  and  he  never  would  have  signed 
it  had  he  not  had  the  promise  of  the  members 
of  the  Cabinet  and  the  committees  of  the  Senate 
and  House,  having  the  matter  in  charge,  that  the 
law  should  be  repealed  at  the  close  of  the  war." 

I  said,  "Major,  it  was  a  great  pity  that  that 
pledge  was  not  kept  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  sudden 
death,  for  that  Act  was  one  of  the  greatest  blots 
on  the  page  of  our  American  life,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  curses  to  the  civilization  of  our  country. 
The  brewers  and  distillers  paying  such  a  large 
amount  into  the  treasury  each  year  to  support  the 
Government,  had  a  mortgage  on  it  so  large  that 
they  thought  they  owned  it,  and  acted  as  though 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     137 

that  were  the  case ;  and  the  pity  to  the  nation  was 
that  their  ownership  was  so  absolute  and  so 
necessarily  recognized  that  it  seemed  the  people 
could  not  get  out  from  under  that  despotism,  and 
it  is  only  just  now  that  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  echoing  the  voice  of  the  voters  of  the 
nation,  are  declaring  their  independence  from  this 
tyranny  and  their  determination  to  utterly  de- 
stroy it." 

His  parting  message  to  me  was  this:  "The  be- 
ginning of  the  end  of  the  liquor  traffic  is  near.  I 
do  not  have  to  stay  to  see  it.  With  prophetic  eye 
I  see  it  is  in  the  immediate  future.  I  feel  now 
like  saying  with  Simeon  of  old:  4Now,  Lord,  let- 
test  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  for  mine 
eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation.'  ' 

He  went  into  the  realm  and  reward  which  his 
spiritual  vision  beheld  only  a  few  days  after  that. 
I  took  up  a  New  York  paper  and  read  a  full  col- 
umn article  with  this  heading: 

Major  Merwin  Dies.  Friend  of  Lincoln.  President 
Appointed  him  to  Temperance  Work  in  Union  Army. 
Famous  as  a  Lecturer.  Campaigned  with  Lincoln  in 
1855,  for  State-wide  Prohibition  in  Illinois. 

I  was  not  greatly  surprised,  but  was  very  sad, 
and  I  seemed  to  hear  a  voice  from  the  White 
Throne  saying,  "Well  done,  good  and  faithful 
servant ;  thou  hast  been  faithful  over  a  few  things, 


138     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

I  will  make  thee  ruler  over  many  things;  enter 
thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord." 


WILLIAM  O.   STODDARD 

Lincoln  had  three  private  secretaries  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  administration,  John  Nicolay,  John 
Hay  and  William  Osborn  Stoddard.  I  made  a 
pilgrimage  to  see  Mr.  Stoddard  at  his  home  in 
Madison,  New  Jersey.  I  found  a  man  in  latest 
cut  of  clothes,  tall,  straight  as  an  arrow,  gentle 
and  polite  in  voice  and  manner.  It  was  a  bene- 
diction to  meet  with  his  sunshine  and  cheer,  his 
ready  wit,  his  constant  flow  of  humor,  and,  best 
of  all,  his  knowledge  of  and  love  for  Lincoln. 
I  told  him  I  was  very  glad  of  an  opportunity  to 
get  from  his  lips  some  evidence  of  Lincoln's 
habits  of  total  abstinence,  and  the  unspeakable 
eloquence  of  his  voice  and  example  against  the 
liquor  habit  and  traffic.  I  said,  "Please  tell  me 
a  little  bit  about  your  private  secretaryship  to  Mr. 
Lincoln.  How  did  you  come  to  be  appointed  ?" 

He  said,  "I  was  editor  of  a  paper  in  Cham- 
paign, Illinois,  called  the  'Central  Illinois  Ga- 
zette,' which  had  the  honor  of  presenting  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  for  the  first  time  in  public  print  as 
a  candidate  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United 
States." 

"What  kind  of  a  paper  was  it?"  I  asked. 

"It  was  the  most  fanatical  temperance  paper 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     139 

of  Eastern  Illinois/1  he  answered.  "Such  papers 
were  exceedingly  scarce.  I  can  recall  hardly  any 
between  where  I  lived  and  Chicago.  Prohibi- 
tion was  not  as  popular  then  as  it  is  now,  and 
those  of  us  who  espoused  it  were  accounted  cranks 
to  the  utmost  limit.  I  was  the  crank  editor  my- 
self, and  wrote  everything  that  went  into  it.  The 
paper  was  also  violently  anti-slavery  and  friendly 
to  the  Free  Soil  (Republican)  party." 

Mr.  Stoddard  showed  me  his  two  articles  first 
naming  Lincoln  for  the  Presidency.  The  local 
article  read: 

PERSONAL 

Our  Next  President.  We  had  the  pleasure  of  intro- 
ducing to  the  hospitalities  of  our  sanctum  a  few  days 
ago  the  Hon.  Abraham  Lincoln.  Few  men  can  make 
an  hour  pass  away  more  agreeably.  We  do  not  pretend 
to  know  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  will  ever  condescend  to 
occupy  the  White  House  or  not,  but  if  he  should,  it  is 
a  comfort  to  know  that  he  has  established  for  himself 
a  character  and  reputation  of  sufficient  strength  and  purity 
to  withstand  the  disreputable  and  corrupting  influence 
of  even  that  locality.  No  man  in  the  west  at  the  present 
time  occupies  a  more  enviable  position  before  the  people 
or  stands  a  better  chance  for  obtaining  a  high  position 
among  those  to  whose  guidance  our  ship  of  State  is  to  be 
entrusted. 

The  editorial  in  the  same  issue,  nominating  Mr. 
Lincoln,  closed  with  the  following : 


140     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

No  man  will  be  so  sure  to  consolidate  the  party  vote 
of  the  State,  or  will  carry  the  great  Mississippi  Valley 
with  a  more  irresistible  rush  of  popular  enthusiasm  than 
our  distinguished  fellow  citizen,  Abraham  Lincoln.  We 
in  Illinois  know  him  well,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word; 
a  true  democrat,  a  man  of  the  people,  whose  strongest 
friends  and  supporters  are  the  hard-handed  and  strong- 
limbed  laboring  men,  who  hail  him  as  a  brother  and 
who  look  upon  him  as  one  of  their  real  representative 
men.  A  true  friend  of  freedom,  having  already  done 
important  service  for  the  cause,  and  proved  his  abundant 
ability  for  still  greater  service,  yet  a  staunch,  conserva- 
tive, whose  enlarged  and  liberal  mind  descends  to  no 
narrow  view  but  sees  both  sides  of  every  great  question, 
and  of  whom  we  do  not  fear  will  lead  him  to  the  betrayal 
of  any  trust.  We  appeal  to  our  brethren  of  the  Repub- 
lican press  for  the  correctness  of  our  assertions. 

"Doctor  Stoddard,"  I  asked,  "did  Lincoln's 
temperance  proclivities  have  anything  to  do  with 
your  friendliness  to  him  as  a  candidate?" 

He  said,  "Most  certainly  they  did.  Lincoln 
was  known  far  and  near  as  a  total  abstainer  and 
one  not  afraid  or  ashamed  to  acknowledge  it. 
His  voice  had  frequently  been  raised  in  the  cam- 
paigns against  the  saloons,  and  his  writings 
against  them  also  were  well  known.  You  might 
be  sure  that  as  cranky  a  Prohibition  paper  as  the 
'Central  Illinois  Gazette'  was,  would  not  have 
nominated  him  if  he  had  not  been  radically  right 
on  the  temperance  question.  We  were  sure  of 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     141 

that  and  knew  we  made  no  mistake  in  making  him 
our  representative.  Besides,  he  was  radically 
right  on  the  slavery  question  and  gave  me  good 
reason,  as  a  Republican  as  well  as  crank  temper- 
ance editor,  to  name  him  as  our  leader.  I  had 
two  hundred  extra  copies  of  the  paper  containing 
the  editorial  naming  Lincoln  as  a  candidate  for 
the  nomination,  and  sent  them  to  various  news- 
papers and  leading  politicians  in  the  State.  I 
sent  a  special  marked  copy  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  who 
was  greatly  pleased,  and  told  me  afterward  how 
kind  a  thing  it  was  in  me  to  do  so.  After  Lin- 
coln's election  I  went  over  to  Springfield  to  see 
him.  I  had  hardly  gotten  home  when  I  received 
a  letter  from  him  appointing  me  as  one  of  his 
private  secretaries,  and  he  instructed  me  to  go 
before  him  to  Washington  and  see  that  things 
at  the  White  House  were  in  readiness  for  him, 
'and  be  ready  to  meet  me  when  I  come.'  I  did 
so,  and  from  that  time  on  I  was  with  him  in  the 
office  and  at  the  White  House  daily,  you  might  say 
hourly,  to  within  a  few  months  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
death.  The  terrible  excitement  and  heavy  strain, 
and  some  virus  I  caught  somewhere,  threw  me 
into  typhoid  fever,  which  took  me  down  to  noth- 
ing and  disqualified  me  for  further  service;  but 
I  would  not  take  a  million  dollars  for  those  years 
I  had  of  pleasant  personal  companionship  with 
the  immortal  Lincoln,  and  service  with  him  for 
country." 


142     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

"Doctor  Stoddard,"  I  said,  "the  object  of  my 
visit  to  you  to-day  is  to  get  your  views  fresh  from 
your  own  lips  as  to  Lincoln's  total  abstinence 
habit,  and  his  relation  to  the  liquor  business. " 

He  said,  "Lincoln  was  a  total  abstainer  of  total 
abstainers.  You  can't  put  it  too  strong  in  your 
book;  double-lead  it,  emphasize  it;  there  is  no 
debate  nor  doubt  about  it.  I  never  saw  him  take 
a  glass  of  the  lightest  wine  or  ale,  much  less  the 
whiskies  and  brandies  and  stronger  beverages.  I 
have  been  at  the  White  House  times  without  num- 
ber, and  have  eaten  there,  and  never  saw  a  glass 
of  liquor  and  never  saw  a  glass  of  wine  on  his 
table.  I  have  seen  him  at  public  functions  and 
I  never  saw  him  put  a  drop  of  strong  drink  to  his 
lips.  He  was  down  on  the  whole  'pisen'  business, 
and  said  that  nothing  that  had  alcohol  in  it  should 
pollute  his  lips  or  corrupt  his  body  and  mind.  I 
never  heard  him  say  a  harsh  word  about  a 
brewer,  distiller  or  saloonkeeper  in  my  life;  I 
never  heard  him  say  a  rough  word  about  a  drunk- 
ard, only  words  of  sympathy  and  love  and  hope ; 
but  his  colossal  will  never  set  itself  down  firmer 
than  it  did  when  he  said  'No'  to  any  form  of 
temptation  to  use  liquor.  What  an  example  he 
was  to  me  as  a  young  man  and  to  others  of  my 
class,  and  to  the  great  nation  of  which  he  was 
the  illustrious  head!  But  he  carried  his  idea  of 
the  danger  of  liquor  into  his  own  life  at  the  White 
House,  and  did  the  unusual,  the  startling  thing 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     143 

of  banishing  wine  from  the  White  House.  This 
was  a  social  revolution  in  Washington,  and  at- 
tracted the  notice  and  comment  of  the  whole  na- 
tion. He  effected  the  social  change  as  to  liquor 
in  so  quiet  and  modest  a  way,  and  yet  with  that 
firmness  with  which  he  did  all  things,  that  he 
thought  were  right." 

I  said,  "You  have  touched  a  vital  historic 
point  in  our  temperance  national  movement.  Tell 
me  a  little  more  about  the  circumstances  of  the 
time,  and  what  he  did  in  the  White  House  as  to 
serving  liquors." 

"I  have  it  here  in  a  nutshell,"  he  said,  "in  one 
of  my  books,  'Inside  the  White  House';  and  I 
will  read  it  to  you  and  you  can  take  bodily  what 
I  read  to  you." 

This  is  what  he  read: 

The  first  of  the  regular  series  of  Friday  evening  public 
receptions  at  the  White  House  was  held  March  8,  four 
days  after  inauguration.  There  was  at  least  this  dif- 
ference between  the  pack  of  1861  and  the  memorable 
rush  in  Andrew  Jackson's  day  in  that  all  these  hand- 
shakers were  apparently  well-behaved  and  entirely  sober. 
It  was  hardly  so  in  1829,  if  historians  have  correctly  pic- 
tured the  effects  of  the  "superabundant  refreshments" 
provided  according  to  the  ideas  of  hospitality  prevailing 
at  that  day.  A  great  deal  of  that  old  idea  survives, 
lingering  upon  the  sideboards  of  old  Washington  fam- 
ilies, in  the  cupboards  of  professional  offices,  under  the 
desks  of  officeholders,  civil,  military  and  naval;  over  all 


144     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

of  the  hotels,  meeting  everybody  in  the  street  whenever 
he  meets  anybody  else;  and  it  is  powerfully  entrenched 
under  each  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congresss  at  the  Capi- 
tol, and  its  very  citadel  is  the  famous  "Hole  in  the  Wall," 
convenient  to  the  Supreme  Court  rooms  and  operating  as 
a  half-way  social  house  between  the  two  legislative 
houses.  Sometimes  one  can  understand  the  old  times 
better  after  a  late-in-the-day  inspection  of  the  sociability 
going  on  in  the  "Hole  in  the  Wall."  There  is  nothing 
of  the  sort  in  the  White  House  at  present,  for  Mr.  Lin- 
coln is  strictly  abstinent  as  to  all  intoxicating  drinks.  His 
first  printed  paper,  written  while  a  mere  boy,  was  a  vigor- 
ous denunciation  of  the  evils  produced  by  whisky  among 
the  settlers  in  the  backwoods  of  his  own  State.  And  yet 
some  of  the  newspapers  of  the  North,  in  company  with 
other  slanderous  falsehoods,  claimed  that  the  funny  jokes 
he  told,  and  acts  unfriendly  to  them  which  he  performed, 
were  while  he  was  under  the  influence  of  liquor. 

I  said,  "Doctor  Stoddard,  I  have  read  with 
deep  interest  and  not  a  little  amusement  the  epi- 
sode of  the  sending  of  liquors  to  the  White  House 
by  friends  in  New  York,  and  of  your  settling  the 
dilemma  by  suggesting  to  Mrs.  Lincoln  that  they 
be  sent  to  the  hospitals  for  the  sick." 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  said,  "that  incident  is  as  fresh 
in  my  mind  now  as  it  was  at  the  time  it  occurred." 
Then  going  to  his  shelf  and  taking  down  a  vol- 
ume, "Lincoln  at  Work,"  written  by  himself,  and 
turning  the  pages,  he  said:  "That  account  in  full 
is  here,  and  I  will  read  it  to  you  and  you  can  take 
it  down  as  part  of  this  interview: 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     145 

Precisely  what  was  the  new  order  of  things  may  be 
illustrated  by  an  incident  which  was  almost  amusing. 
Among  Mr.  Lincoln's  warm  admirers  in  the  city  of 
New  York  were  several  gentlemen  with  social  tendencies; 
they  knew  little  of  his  personal  habits  and  prejudices; 
but  they  were  aware  that  he  was  from  the  West,  and 
believed  that  he  was  familiar  with  the  social  customs. 
They  were  also  aware  of  the  costly  exactions  of  White 
House  hospitality,  and  they  determined  to  aid  him  in 
bearing  that  part  of  the  tremendous  burden  put  upon 
him.  Their  intentions,  according  to  such  light  and 
knowledge  as  they  had,  were  patriotic,  and  their  perform- 
ance was  liberality  itself.  They  made  out  a  "wine  list" 
which  omitted  hardly  anything  supposed  to  be  required 
by  the  sideboard  or  locker  of  the  Commander-in-Chief, 
and  the  supply  included  even  his  dinner  table.  Every- 
thing sent  was  choice  of  its  kind,  and  it  was  expressed, 
prepaid,  with  warm  declarations  of  good  will.  The 
first  that  I  heard  of  it  was  a  sudden,  peremptory  summons 
to  me  from  Mrs.  Lincoln  to  come  and  see  her  at  once. 
I  hurried  down  stairs  to  her  reception  room,  the  historic 
Red  Room,  somewhat  anxious  to  know  what  might  be 
the  matter.  There  was  enough,  indeed,  for  serious  con- 
sultation; for  she  rapidly  unfolded  to  me  the  story  of 
the  New  York  contribution. 

"Now!"  she  exclaimed,  in  a  very  comical  perplexity, 
"what  are  we  to  do?  I  don't  wish  to  offend  them,  of 
course,  but  Mr.  Lincoln  won't  have  it  in  the  house.  He 
never  uses  any.  I  never  touch  it  myself.  And  oh,  there 
is  so  much  of  ;t!" 

"Where  is  it,  Mrs.  Lincoln?" 

"Why,  it  is  all  downstairs  in  the  basement.     I  haven't 


146     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

told  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  I  don't  wish  to  bother  him  about 
it.  I  wish  you  would  just  decide  the  matter,  and  tell 
me  what  to  do.  What  answer  shall  I  give  to  these  gen- 
tlemen? What  am  I  to  do  with  all  the  liquor  and 
wines?" 

Her  dismay  had  set  me  laughing,  but  I  thought  I  could 
see  a  way  out  of  her  very  serious  dilemma. 

"As  to  them/'  I  said,  "Madam,  all  you  need  to  do 
is  to  send  an  entirely  informal  acknowledgment  to  who- 
ever has  acted  as  their  agent.  Only  a  business-like  re- 
ceipt for  parcels  duly  delivered.  As  for  the  wines  and 
liquors,  don't  let  them  stay  in  the  house  at  all.  Do  not 
worry  the  President  about  it,  either.  Make  a  fair  division 
of  the  whole  lot  among  the  army  hospitals,  and  ship  'em 
right  away;  the  surgeons  and  nurses  will  know  what  to 
do  with  them.  Put  all  the  responsibility  upon  the  scien- 
tific people.  If  any  of  the  sick  soldiers  need  it,  there  it  is." 

"That's  exactly  what  I  will  do !"  she  exclaimed.  "Every 
bit  of  it  shall  go  out,  right  away;  then  if  anybody  ever 
says  anything  about  it,  all  I  need  to  do  is  to  tell  what  we 
did  with  it." 

This  was  very  nearly  at  the  beginning  of  the  Lincoln 
administration,  and  the  kind  of  moral  testimony  which  it 
represents  went  on  in  silent  power,  year  after  year.  Men 
did  not  feel  like  drinking  before  going  to  call  upon  Mr. 
Lincoln.  Officials  of  all  sorts  felt  the  unseen  pressure, 
and  it  was  all  the  while  aided,  added  to,  by  the  precept 
and  example  of  several  prominent  statesmen.  The  tone 
of  official  conduct  and  life  underwent  a  gradual  change. 

"How  do  you  feel,  Doctor  Stoddard,"  I  asked, 
"now  that  you  are  an  old  man,  about  this  temper- 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     147 

ance  question,  on  which  you  were  such  a  'crank' 
in  your  early  life?" 

He  said,  UI  have  the  same  views  today  I  had 
then,  and  I  am  very  thankful  that  I  had  the  ex- 
ample of  Lincoln  to  encourage  and  strengthen 
my  right  resolutions."  He  said,  "If  I  had  toyed 
with  the  poison  of  alcohol  I  should  not  now  be 
upon  the  earth  at  eighty-two.  I  greatly  rejoice  at 
the  tides  of  Prohibition  sentiment  and  legislative 
action  that  are  sweeping  away  the  whole  business, 
and  it  looks  now  as  though  I  might  possibly  see 
the  end  of  this  great  enemy." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN  (Continued) 

IT  was  my  good  fortune  to  enjoy  the  warm 
personal  friendship  of  Noah  Brooks,  who 
was  on  the  editorial  staff  of  the  "New  York 
Tribune"  for  years,  and  on  the  editorial  staff  of 
the  "New  York  Times"  a  longer  term.  My 
friendship  began  with  him  when  he  was  chief 
editor  of  the  "Newark  Advertiser."  I  preached 
a  sermon  on  Lincoln  in  the  Central  Methodist 
Church,  of  which  I  was  pastor,  and  Mr.  Brooks 
printed  it  in  his  paper.  He  said  to  me  one  day, 
"You  have  related  a  number  of  incidents  of  Lin- 
coln that  you  got  from  his  old  friends  and  clients 
in  the  West  that  had  never  been  printed  in  the 
magazines  and  books;  I  can  give  you  some  new 
ones  if  you  would  like  to  have  me  do  so,  as  I  was 
one  of  the  closest  friends  Lincoln  had  in  Illinois 
"id  afterward  in  Washington." 

We  had  a  good  long  talk  on  Lincoln.  Mr. 
Brooks  had  just  written  a  "Life  of  Lincoln,"  the 
preface  of  which  he  read  to  me,  showing  how 
intimate  was  his  knowledge  of  the  subject: 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  know  Lincoln  with  some 
degree  of  intimacy.  Our  acquaintance  began  with  the 

148 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     149 

Fremont  campaign  of  1856,  when  I  was  a  resident  of 
Illinois,  and  continued  through  the  Lincoln-Douglas  can- 
vass two  years  later.  That  relation  became  more  inti- 
mate and  confidential  when,  in  1862,  I  met  Lincoln  in 
Washington  and  saw  him  almost  daily  until  his  tragical 
death.  This  preliminary  egotism  may  be  pardoned  by 
way  of  explanation  of  the  fact  that  many  things  relating 
to  his  early  life,  herein  set  down,  were  derived  from  his 
own  lips,  often  during  hours  of  secluded  companionship. 

"Mr.  Brooks,"  I  said,  "I  should  like  to  have 
from  you  some  facts  about  Lincoln's  temperance 
habits  and  his  stand  on  the  drink  question.'' 

He  said  "Lincoln  was  a  consistent,  persistent 
total  abstainer,  and  foe  of  the  liquor  traffic.  That 
chapter  of  his  life  is  very  clear  and  bright.  I 
shall  take  that  subject  up  with  you  in  a  moment 
or  two.  Before  I  do  so,  I  want  to  tell  you  what 
a  devout  man  Lincoln  was.  He  turned  his  heart 
inside  out  to  me,  and  I  saw  in  it  how  deep  his 
piety  was.  I  will  give  you  this  illustration :  I  was 
at  the  White  House  one  day  when  the  fate  of  the 
nation  hung  in  the  balance,  and  a  decisive  battle 
was  then  raging.  Lincoln  walked  back  and  forth 
in  the  room  anxiously.  He  took  out  his  watch 
and  said  to  me,  'Twelve  o'clock,  and  no  word 
from  the  battle.'  One  o'clock  came,  and  two,  and 
he  said,  'No  news  is  bad  news.  I  fear  we  have 
been  defeated.'  Three  o'clock  came,  and  the  sus- 
pense was  unbearable.  Four  o'clock  came,  and  a 
courier  rushed  in  with  a  telegram.  Lincoln  tore 


1 50  KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

open  the  envelope  and  read  it.  He  turned  ashen 
pale  and  handed  me  the  message.  Sure  enough, 
the  Union  army  had  suffered  a  terrible  defeat.  I 
shall  never  forget  his  wail  of  agony  as  he  cried 
aloud,  'O  God!  What  in  the  world  are  we  going 
to  do?  O  God,  help  me!'  An  old  gray-headed 
man,  a  relative  of  the  family,  was  the  only  other 
person  in  the  room.  He  cried  like  a  child;  and 
though  I  am  not  much  given  to  tears,  I  cried,  too 
at  the  insufferable  agony  of  Lincoln.  It  seemed 
a  veritable  Gethsemane,  where  'a  man  of  sorrows 
and  acquainted  with  grief  wrestled  with  the  sins 
and  the  woes  of  the  world.  Then  stretching  him- 
self up  and  looking  right  into  heaven,  and  taking 
the  nation  in  one  arm,  and  the  hand  of  the 
Almighty  with  the  other,  he  cried,  *O  God  of 
Israel,  God  of  our  native  land,  my  God,  do  not 
let  our  nation  die.  Save  us,  oh,  save  us!  Give 
us  wisdom  to  plant,  but,  O  God,  come  down  to  our 
battlefield  and  lead  our  armies  to  victory.' 

"His  mother's  teaching  and  the  awful  examples 
of  drunkenness  in  his  neighborhood,  awakened 
sympathy  and  a  hatred  of  drink  in  the  boy,  and, 
when  he  became  old  enough  to  write  compositions, 
he  tried  his  best  on  one  on  the  evils  of  strong 
drink.  He  carried  it  over  to  the  home  of  a  friend 
and  asked  him  to  read  it  and  see  if  he  thought  it 
good  enough  to  print  in  the  paper.  The  man 
said  he  thought  it  was,  but  did  not  know  what 
the  publisher  might  say  about  it.  He  said,  'Abe, 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     151 

let  me  have  it  and  I  will  see  what  can  be  done 
about  it.'  The  friend  got  a  Baptist  preacher  to 
send  it  to  Ohio,  where  it  was  published  in  a  paper. 
Lincoln  was  proud  to  see  his  first  piece  in  the 
paper,  and  happy  in  the  hope  that  it  might  do  the 
people  some  good.  Ward  Hall  Lamon,  in  his 
'Life  of  Lincoln,'  gives  a  detailed  report  of  the 
writing  of  this  essay  on  temperance." 

"Mr.  Brooks,  the  first  line  to  the  public  from 
the  pen  of  the  immortal  Lincoln,  then,  was  an 
arraignment  of  the  liquor  evil,  was  it  not?" 

He  answered:  "It  was." 

I  asked  Noah  Brooks  about  the  incident  that 
made  such  a  sensation  at  the  time  Mr.  Lincoln 
refused  to  serve  liquors  or  allow  others  to  serve 
them,  on  the  occasion  of  his  notification  by  a  com- 
mittee of  his  nomination  for  the  Presidency  the 
first  time. 

uThe  incident  is  historically  true,"  he  said.  "I 
have  made  a  record  of  it  in  the  book  I  have 
written.  More  than  once  Mr.  Lincoln  spoke  to 
me  about  it.  He  said  at  first  he  was  not  a  little 
worried,  as  he  did  not  wish  to  offend  those  who 
were  so  insistent,  and  had  been  such  loyal  friends, 
but,  said  he,  'I  do  not  know  how  to  be  incon- 
sistent with  myself.  After  a  long  life  of  total 
abstinence,  and  of  opposition  to  the  drink  habit, 
it  would  have  been  a  thing  unthinkable  for  me  to 
drink  or  allow  wines  to  be  drunk  in  my  house. 
By  so  doing  I  should  have  forgotten  all  the  things 


152     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

I  had  said  and  written  against  drink,  the  many 
pledges  I  have  induced  others  to  sign,  and  my 
own  self-respect.  I  felt  that  the  situation,  not 
made  by  me  but  by  my  friends,  with  the  best  of 
intentions,  furnished  me  an  opportunity,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  nation,  to  put  myself  on  the  right  side 
of  this  great  moral  question." 

Charles  Carlton  Coffin,  as  a  member  of  the 
press,  accompanied  the  committee  to  notify  Mr. 
Lincoln  of  his  nomination.  In  his  "Life  of  Lin- 
coln" Mr.  Coffin  says: 

The  clock  had  struck  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  of 
May  17,  1860,  when  the  party  from  Chicago  proceeded 
to  the  house  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  Springfield.  Mr.  Ash- 
man, president  of  the  convention,  made  a  brief  address. 
The  reply  was  equally  brief.  Smiles  rippled  upon  Mr. 
Lincoln's  face  as  he  then  addressed  William  D.  Kelley 
of  Pennsylvania:  "You  are  a  tall  man,  Judge  Kelley. 
What  is  your  height ?"  "Six  feet  three."  "I  beat  you," 
said  Mr.  Lincoln;  "I  am  six  feet  four  without  my  high- 
heeled  boots  on."  "Pennsylvania  bows  to  Illinois.  I 
am  glad  we  have  found  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
whom  we  can  look  up  to,  for  we  have  been  informed 
that  there  were  only  little  giants  in  Illinois,"  a  graceful 
allusion  to  Mr.  Douglas. 

"Formalities  laid  aside,"  Mr.  Lincoln  said,  "Mrs.  Lin- 
coln will  be  pleased  to  see  you  in  the  other  room,  gen* 
tlemen.  You  will  be  thirsty  after  your  long  journey. 
You  will  find  something  refreshing  in  the  library." 

In  the  library  were  several  hundred  volumes  arranged 
upon  shelves,  two  globes,  one  of  the  earth,  the  other  of 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     153 

the  heavens,  a  plain  table,  a  pitcher  of  cold  water  and 
glasses,  but  no  liquors. 

Artist  Carpenter,  who  painted  the  celebrated 
picture,  "Signing  the  Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion," says  in  his  book,  "Six  Months  in  the  White 
House,"  that  a  friend  who  attended  the  conven- 
tion and  the  notification  told  him  that  when  the 
party  entered  the  library  Mr.  Lincoln  said,  "Gen- 
tlemen, we  must  pledge  our  mutual  healths  in  the 
most  healthy  beverage  God  has  given  to  man. 
It  is  the  only  beverage  I  have  ever  used  or  al- 
lowed in  my  family,  and  I  cannot  conscientiously 
depart  from  it  on  the  present  occasion.  It  is  pure 
Adam's  ale  from  the  spring."  And  talcing  a 
tumbler  he  touched  it  to  his  lips  and  pledged  them 
his  highest  respect  in  a  cup  of  cold  water. 

The  next  morning  a  citizen  said  to  Coffin: 
"You  did  not  find  any  great  spread  of  liquors,  I 
take  it." 

"No,  I  did  not,"  said  Coffin. 

"Thereby  hangs  a  little  story,"  said  the  man. 
"When  we  knew  you  were  on  your  way,  a  number 
of  us  called  on  Mr.  Lincoln  and  said  that  in  all 
probability  some  of  the  members  of  the  commit- 
tee would  need  some  refreshment,  wines  or 
liquors.  CI  haven't  any  in  the  house,1  he  said. 
'We  will  furnish  them.'  'Gentlemen,  I  can  not 
allow  you  to  do  what  I  will  not  do  myself,'  came 
the  reply.  But  that  was  not  the  end  of  it.  Some 


154     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

of  our  good  citizens,  feeling  that  Springfield  had 
been  highly  honored  by  the  nomination,  sent  over 
some  baskets  of  champagne,  but  Mr.  Lincoln 
sent  them  back,  thanking  them  for  their  intended 
kindness.' ' 

Senator  Shelby  M.  Cullom,  of  Illinois,  has 
made  this  reference  to  the  incident:  "I  recall 
distinctly  when  the  committee  of  citizens,  includ- 
ing myself,  called  at  Lincoln's  home  after  he  was 
nominated  for  President  to  talk  over  with  him 
the  arrangements  for  receiving  the  committee  on 
notification.  Lincoln  said,  'Boys,  I  have  never 
had  a  drop  of  liquor  in  my  life,  and  I  don't  want 
to  begin  now.'  That  part  of  the  entertainment 
was  provided  for  elsewhere." 

This  incident,  denied  so  stoutly  by  the  liquor 
men,  is  verified  by  Lincoln  himself,  who  came, 
the  new  figure  on  the  stage  and  in  the  eyes  of 
the  nation  and  the  centuries,  proclaiming  himself 
a  total  abstainer,  the  inveterate  foe  of  intoxicat- 
ing liquors.  Mr.  J.  Mason  Haight,  hearing  of 
the  incident,  wrote  Lincoln  to  know  whether  it 
was  true  or  not,  and  received  this  answer,  dated 
Springfield,  Illinois,  June  n,  1860: 

I  think  it  would  be  improper  for  me  to  write  or  say 
anything  to  or  for  the  public  upon  the  subject  of  which 
you  inquire.  I  therefore  wish  the  letter  I  do  write  to 
be  held  as  strictly  confidential.  Having  kept  house  six- 
teen years,  and  having  never  held  the  "cup"  to  the  lips 
of  my  friends  there,  my  judgment  was  that  I  should  not, 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     155 

9 

in  my  new  position,  change  my  habit  in  this  respect. 
What  actually  occurred  on  the  occasion  of  the  committee 
visiting  me,  I  think  it  would  be  better  for  others  to  say. 

In  my  visit  and  interview  with  Noah  Brooks, 
he  said:  "There  never  lived  a  more  consistent 
total  abstainer  than  Lincoln,  nor  one  "who  felt 
more  deeply  the  damage  drink  was  doing  to  the 
individual  and  to  society.  He  used  to  point  out 
to  me  some  of  the  most  brilliant  and  promising 
men  in  public  life  and  lament  the  fact  that  their 
usefulness  and  life  had  been  cut  short  by  strong 
drink.  Time  and  time  again  he  told  me  that  he 
attributed  much  of  his  strength  of  body,  vigor  of 
mind  and  moral  courage  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
never  allowed  alcohol  to  poison  his  body,  muddle 
his  mind  or  soil  his  soul.  He  had  no  harsh  words 
for  the  drunkard,  only  the  deepest  pity  for  him, 
nor  bitter  condemnation  of  the  liquor  dealer, 
claiming  that  society,  which  demanded  and  legal- 
ized the  traffic,  was  responsible  for  its  curse  and 
wreckage.  He  expressed  the  hope  and  belief  that 
in  some  good  time  in  the  future  the  people  would 
arise  and  destroy  the  cruel  despotism  of  rum. 
Close  as  I  was  to  Lincoln  before  and  after  his 
election,  I  never  saw  him  touch  a  drop  of  liquor. 
I  ate  at  the  White  House  dozens,  I  might  say 
scores,  of  times.  I  never  saw  a  drop  of  beer  or 
the  lightest  wine  on  his  table,  and  at  public  func- 
tions I  noticed  that  he  either  turned  his  glass  down 
or  pushed  it  aside  untouched." 


156     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Noah  Brooks's  "Life  of  Lincoln/'  in  style, 
clearness,  fulness  and  reliability,  is  one  of  the 
standard  works  of  American  literature. 

Colonel  William  H.  Crook,  who  had  experi- 
ences at  the  White  House  under  five  administra- 
tions and  who  was  one  of  Lincoln's  bodyguards, 
gave  me  a  number  of  incidents  illustrating  Lin- 
coln's total  abstinence.  He  said  Lincoln  was  a 
hearty  eater,  although  he  never  took  on  much 
flesh,  but  that  he  never  touched  a  drop  of  intoxi- 
cants. He  never  allowed  them  on  his  table  at 
the  White  House,  not  even  the  mildest  forms  of 
alcoholic  drinks,  and  at  the  public  functions  he 
never  used  a  drop.  "Mr.  Lincoln  ordered  me  to 
go  with  him  on  his  trip  to  Richmond,  which  he 
entered  thirty-six  hours  after  the  Confederate 
army  had  retired  from  it,"  said  Colonel  Crook. 
"It  was  a  dangerous  and  rash  thing,  but  Lincoln 
knew  no  danger.  He  went  to  the  Federal  head- 
quarters, which  was  the  old  Jefferson  Davis  home, 
a  large  house  of  gray  stucco  with  a  garden  at  the 
back.  I  asked  the  old  colored  servant  if  they  had 
anything  to  drink  there.  He  said:  'Oh,  certainly, 
marster,'  and  went  down  cellar  and  brought  up 
a  long  black  bottle  of  whisky.  It  was  passed 
around  and,  if  my  memory  serves  me  correctly, 
every  person  in  the  company  took  a  swig  but  Mr. 
Lincoln,  who,  shaking  his  head  and  waving  his 
hand,  said,  'None  for  me.'  This  is  an  illustration 
of  a  hundred  times  I  have  seen  Lincoln  refuse 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     157 

liquor  when  his   friends  and  associates  did  not 
hesitate  to  take  it." 

THE  LINCOLN-LEE  LEGION 

The  Rev.  Howard  H.  Russell,  D.D.,  founder 
of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of  America,  in  taxing 
his  fertile  brain  to  organize  a  Young  People's 
Auxiliary  to  the  League,  naturally  turned  his 
thoughts  to  Lincoln,  the  ideal  man  and  pro- 
nounced temperance  advocate,  as  a  character 
around  whom  the  institution  could  be  built.  In 
search  of  historical  data  he  went  to  Springfield, 
Illinois,  early  in  1900.  He  found  at  Mr.  Diller's 
drug  store  in  Springfield  an  old  desk  which  Lin- 
coln used  when  he  was  a  member  of  the  State 
Legislature,  and  on  which  he  had  written  in  plain 
letters,  "A.  Lincoln."  Diller  told  Russell  that 
there  was  a  farmer  by  the  name  of  Cleopas 
Breckenridge  living  in  Sangamon  County,  about 
sixteen  miles  away,  who  knew  a  great  deal  about 
Lincoln's  temperance  proclivities,  and  he  was  sure 
that  Russell  would  be  deeply  interested  in  getting 
data  from  him.  A  few  months  later  Doctor 
Russell  wrote  Mr.  Diller,  asking  him  if  he  would 
not  request  Mr.  Breckenridge,  if  possible,  to  meet 
him  at  a  certain  date.  The  arrangement  was 
made  and  Breckenridge  drove  into  Springfield 
upon  a  stormy  day  and  met  Russell  at  the  Leland 
Hotel  in  that  city,  when  he  told  Russell  the  fol- 
lowing story: 


1 58     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

"When  I  was  a  boy,"  said  Breckenridge,  "I 
lived  with  my  father  upon  the  same  farm  which 
I  now  own  in  Cotton  Hill  Township  in  this 
county.  One  day  in  the  summer  of  1846  or  1847, 
when  I  was  about  ten  years  old,  my  father  came 
home  and  told  us  that  there  would  be  a  temper- 
ance meeting  held  at  the  new  schoolhouse,  and 
that  we  could  all  go  to  the  meeting  if  we  wished 
to  do  so.  Most  of  the  family  attended  the  meet- 
ing. The  speaker  on  the  occasion  was  a  young 
lawyer  from  Springfield,  who  already  had  gained 
a  reputation  as  a  public  speaker,  and  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  fact  that  he  was  to  speak  called 
out  a  large  crowd,  almost  all  the  families  in  that 
part  of  the  county  being  represented.  The 
speaker  made  a  very  earnest  appeal  for  total  ab- 
stinence from  the  use  of  all  intoxicating  drinks. 
He  gave  reasons  why  he  was  in  favor  of  total 
abstinence,  and  why  he  thought  others  should 
become  total  abstainers.  He  said,  'Let  us  make 
this  meeting  one  of  strong  and  lasting  value. 
Whether  we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  drink- 
ing or  not,  let  us  here  set  an  example  to 
others  by  enrolling  in  the  ranks  of  pledged 
abstainers.  I  have  signed  this  pledge  my- 
self and  would  be  glad  to  have  as  many 
of  my  neighbors  who  are  willing  to  do  so 
sign  the  same  pledge  with  me.'  The  pledge 
was  passed  from  one  to  another  and  was 
signed  by  a  good  many  of  those  present. 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN    159 

After  a  number  had  signed,  the  first  thing  I 
knew  the  speaker  was  standing  in  front  of 
me.  He  said  to  me:  'Sonny,  don't  you  want 
your  name  on  this  pledge?'  I  said:  'Yes,  sir.' 
He  said:  'You  know  what  it  means,  that  you 
are  not  to  drink  intoxicating  liquor?'  I  said: 
'Yes,  sir.'  He  asked  me  my  name  and  I  told 
him,  'Cleopas  Breckenridge.'  He  wrote  my  name 
on  the  paper,  then  he  transferred  the  pencil  to 
his  left  hand,  and  holding  the  paper  and  pencil 
in  his  left  hand,  he  leaned  over  and  laid  his  right 
hand  upon  my  head  and  said:  'Now,  Sonny,  you 
keep  that  pledge,  and  it  will  be  the  best  act  of 
your  life.'  The  speaker  who  addressed  that 
meeting,  and  who  wrote  my  name  on  the  pledge, 
was  Abraham  Lincoln." 

The  more  the  auxiliary  to  the  League  occupied 
his  mind  the  more  Russell  felt  that  Lincoln  must 
be  the  center  of  it,  so  he  made  another  trip  to 
Springfield,  Illinois,  and  drove  out  to  the  farm  of 
Cleopas  Breckenridge,  where  he  was  entertained 
admirably  overnight,  and  where  he  had  an  oppor- 
tunity to  get  more  definite  data.  He  asked  Breck- 
enridge whether  he  could  recall  any  others  who 
were  at  that  meeting  at  South  Fork  schoolhouse 
when  he  himself  had  signed  the  pledge.  At  first 
he  could  not  be  sure,  but  the  next  morning  he 
said  to  Russell  that  there  were  two  men  living  at 
Edinburgh,  Christian  County,  Illinois,  who  he 
thought  were  likely  to  have  been  there,  and  so 


160     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Russell  went  over  with  Breckenridge  that  same 
day  and  luckily  found  the  two  men  in  town,  R.  E. 
Berry  and  Moses  Martin.  He  took  them  to  the 
notary  public,  where  they  both  made  affidavit 
that  they  were  present  at  the  meeting,  remem- 
bered Lincoln's  address,  and  signed  the  pledge 
that  Lincoln  had  written  and  signed  himself  with 
them.  Martin  in  his  affidavit  says : 

Among  those  who  signed  the  pledge  in  that  meeting 
were  George,  William,  and  Uriah  Hughes  and  their 
mother;  Preston  Breckenridge  and  his  children,  and  R.  E. 
Berry,  now  of  Edinburgh,  Illinois.  I  myself  signed  then 
and  there — my  first  pledge — and  I  have  kept  it  until 
now.  I  further  remember  and  state  that  after  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  spoken  and  the  pledge  had  been  signed,  Mr. 
Lincoln  asked  if  any  one  had  anything  to  say  for  or 
against  the  movement,  and  Mr.  Preston  Breckenbridge 
rose  up  and  spoke  of  the  importance  of  parents  taking 
an  interest  in  the  matter.  The  wife  of  the  said  Brecken- 
ridge had  recently  died,  and  he  pointed  to  his  mother- 
less children  and  spoke  of  his  anxiety  for  them,  and  as 
he  spoke  the  tears  ran  down  his  face.  Afterward  at 
various  times  and  places  the  said  Preston  Breckenridge 
held  Washingtonian  meetings  and  I  went  with  him  and 
acted  as  secretary  and  helped  enroll  the  signers  to  the 
pledge. 

The  meeting  above  referred  to  conducted  and  ad- 
dressed by  Abraham  Lincoln  was  the  beginning  of  a 
series  of  Washingtonian  meetings  which  did  great  and 
lasting  good  in  this  section  of  the  country. 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     161 

After  Russell's  return  to  New  York  he  received 
a  letter  from  Cleopas  Breckenridge,  stating  that 
he  had  found  another  person  who  when  a  child, 
signed  the  same  Lincoln  pledge — Mrs.  Almarinda 
Bell  Galloway.  These  four  survivors  of  that  his- 
toric event  went  to  Springfield,  had  a  reunion, 
went  to  the  photographers  and  had  their  picture 
taken,  and  present  a  very  intelligent  and  digni- 
fied quartet  of  veterans. 

This  is  the  text  of  the  pledge  which  Lincoln 
wrote  with  his  own  fingers  and  signed  with  the 
grown  people  and  children  at  South  Fork  school- 
house  : 

Whereas,  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquors  as  a  beverage 
is  productive  of  pauperism,  degradation  and  crime,  and 
believing  it  is  our  duty  to  discourage  that  which  pro- 
duces more  evil  than  good,  we  therefore  pledge  ourselves 
to  abstain  from  the  use  of  intoxicating  liquors  as  a  bev- 
erage. 

A  Southerner  suggested  to  Doctor  Russell  that 
the  name  of  Robert  E.  Lee  be  added  to  that  of 
Lincoln,  making  it  the  Lincoln-Lee  Legion.  Rus- 
sell agreed  to  the  suggestion,  and  the  name  of 
Lee,  one  of  the  ablest,  purest,  truest  and  best  men 
,  personally  this  country  ever  produced,  who  was  a 
total  abstainer,  was  added  to  that  of  Lincoln ;  the 
abstinence  pledge  of  the  Lincoln-Lee  Legion  has 
been  signed  by  4,000,000  people. 


1 62     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

LINCOLN'S  ADDRESS  AT  SPRINGFIELD 

We  will  now  call  to  the  witness  stand  Lincoln 
himself  to  testify  in  the  case  of  Lincoln  vs.  Alco- 
hol. From  the  great  address  he  made  in  Spring- 
field before  the  Washingtonian  Society  which  on 
February  22,  1842,  we  take  copious  quotations  as 
follows : 

Although  the  temperance  cause  has  been  in  progress 
for  near  twenty  years,  it  is  apparent  to  all  that  it  is  just 
now  being  crowned  with  a  degree  of  success  hitherto  un- 
paralleled. 

The  list  of  its  friends  is  daily  swelled  by  the  additions 
of  fifties,  of  hundreds,  and  of  thousands.  The  cause  it- 
self seems  suddenly  transformed  from  a  cold  abstract 
theory,  to  a  living,  breathing,  active,  and  powerful  chief- 
tain, going  forth  "conquering  and  to  conquer."  The 
citadels  of  his  great  adversary  are  daily  being  stormed 
and  dismantled;  his  temples  and  his  altars,  where  the 
rites  of  his  idolatrous  worship  have  long  been  performed, 
and  where  human  sacrifices  have  long  been  wont  to  be 
made,  are  daily  desecrated  and  deserted.  The  trump  of 
the  conqueror's  fame  is  sounding  from  hill  to  hill,  from 
sea  to  sea,  and  from  land  to  land,  and  calling  millions  to 
his  standard  at  a  blast. 

But  when  one  who  has  long  been  known  as  a  victim 
of  intemperance  bursts  the  fetters  that  have  bound  him, 
and  appears  before  his  neighbors  "clothed  and  in  his  right 
mind,"  a  redeemed  specimen  of  long  lost  humanity,  and 
stands  up  with  tears  of  joy  trembling  in  his  eyes,  to  tell 
of  the  miseries  once  endured,  now  to  be  endured  no  more 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     163 

forever;  of  his  once  naked  and  starving  children,  now 
clad  and  fed  comfortably;  of  a  wife,  long  weighed  down 
with  woe,  weeping,  and  a  broken  heart,  now  restored  to 
health,  happiness,  and  renewed  affection;  and  how  easily 
it  all  is  done,  once  it  is  resolved  to  be  done;  however 
simple  his  language,  there  is  a  logic  and  an  eloquence  in 
it  that  few  with  human  feelings  can  resist. 

But  I  have  said  that  denunciations  against  dram  sell- 
ers and  dram  drinkers,  are  unjust  as  well  as  impolitic. 
Let  us  see. 

I  have  not  inquired  at  what  period  of  time  the  use  of 
intoxicating  drinks  commenced;  nor  is  it  important  to 
know.  It  is  sufficient  that  to  all  of  us  who  now  inhabit 
the  world  the  practice  of  drinking  them  is  just  as  old  as 
the  world  itself, — that  is,  we  have  seen  the  one  just  as 
long  as  we  have  seen  the  other.  When  all  such  of  us 
as  have  now  reached  the  years  of  maturity  first  opened 
our  eyes  upon  the  stage  of  existence,  we  found  intoxicat- 
ing liquor  recognized  by  everybody,  used  by  everybody, 
and  repudiated  by  nobody.  It  commonly  entered  into  the 
first  draught  of  the  infant,  and  the  last  draught  of  the 
dying  man.  From  the  sideboard  of  the  parson  down  to 
the  ragged  pocket  of  the  houseless  loafer,  it  was  con- 
stantly found.  Physicians  prescribed  it  in  this,  that,  and 
the  other  disease.  Government  provided  it  for  its  soldiers 
and  sailors;  and  to  have  a  rolling  or  raising,  a  husking 
or  hoe-down  anywhere,  without  it,  was  positively  in- 
sufferable. 

So,  too,  it  was  everywhere  a  respectable  article  of  manu- 
facture and  of  merchandise.  The  making  of  it  was  re- 
garded as  an  honorable  livelihood;  and  he  who  could 
make  most  was  the  most  enterprising  and  respectable* 


1 64     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Large  and  small  manufactories  of  it  were  everywhere 
erected,  in  which  all  the  earthly  goods  of  their  owners 
were  invested.  Wagons  drew  it  from  town  to  town — 
boats  bore  it  from  clime  to  clime,  and  the  winds  wafted 
it  from  nation  to  nation;  and  merchants  bought  and  sold 
it,  by  wholesale  and  by  retail,  with  precisely  the  same 
feelings,  on  the  part  of  seller,  buyer,  and  bystander,  as 
are  felt  at  the  selling  and  buying  of  flour,  beef,  bacon,  or 
any  other  of  the  real  necessaries  of  life.  Universal  pub- 
lic opinion  not  only  tolerated,  but  recognized  and  adopted, 
its  use. 

It  is  true  that,  even  then,  it  was  known  and  ac- 
knowledged that  many  were  greatly  injured  by  it;  but 
none  seemed  to  think  that  the  injury  arose  from  the  use 
of  a  bad  thing,  but  from  the  abuse  of  a  very  good  thing. 
.  .  .  The  victims  to  it  were  pitied  and  compassionated, 
just  as  now  are  heirs  of  consumption  and  other  hereditary 
diseases.  Their  failing  was  treated  as  a  misfortune,  and 
not  as  a  crime,  or  even  as  a  disgrace. 

If,  then,  what  I  have  been  saying  be  true,  is  it  wonder- 
ful that  some  should  think  and  act  now,  as  all  thought 
and  acted  twenty  years  ago  ?  And  is  it  just  to  assail,  con- 
demn, or  despise  them  for  doing  so? 

But  if  it  be  true,  as  I  have  insisted,  that  those  who 
have  suffered  by  intemperance,  personally,  and  have  re- 
formed, are  the  most  powerful  and  efficient  instruments 
to  push  the  reformation  to  ultimate  success,  it  does  not 
follow  that  those  who  have  not  suffered  have  no  part 
left  them  to  perform.  Whether  or  not  the  world  would 
be  vastly  benefited  by  a  total  and  final  banishment  from 
it  of  all  intoxicating  drinks,  seems  to  me  not  now  to  be 
an  open  question.  Three-fourths  of  mankind  confess  the 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     165 

affirmative  with  their  tongues,  and  I  believe  all  the  rest 
acknowledge  it  in  their  hearts. 

Ought  any,  then,  to  refuse  their  aid  in  doing  what  the 
good  of  the  whole  demands?  Shall  he  who  cannot  do 
much  be  for  that  reason  excused  if  he  do  nothing?  "But," 
says  one,  "what  good  can  I  do  by  signing  the  pledge? 
I  never  drink  even  without  signing."  This  question  has 
already  been  asked  and  answered  more  than  a  million 
times.  Let  it  be  answered  once  more.  For  the  man 
suddenly,  or  in  any  other  way,  to  break  off  from  the  use 
of  drams,  who  has  indulged  in  them  for  a  long  course 
of  years,  and  until  his  appetite  for  them  has  become  ten 
or  a  hundred  fold  stronger  and  more  craving  than  any 
natural  appetite  can  be,  requires  a  most  powerful  moral 
effort.  In  such  an  undertaking,  he  needs  every  moral 
support  and  influence  that  can  possible  be  brought  to  his 
aid  and  thrown  around  him.  And  not  only  so,  but  every 
moral  prop  should  be  taken  from  whatever  argument 
might  rise  in  his  mind  to  lure  him  to  his  backsliding. 
When  he  casts  his  eyes  around  him,  he  should  be  able  to 
see  all  that  he  respects,  all  that  he  admires,  and  all  that 
he  loves,  kindly  and  anxiously  pointing  him  onward ;  and 
none  beckoning  him  back  to  his  former  miserable  "wal- 
lowing in  the  mire." 

But  it  is  said  by  some  that  men  will  think  and  act  for 
themselves;  that  none  will  disuse  spirits  or  anything  else 
merely  because  his  neighbors  do;  and  that  moral  influence 
is  not  that  powerful  engine  contended  for.  Let  us  ex- 
amine this.  Let  me  ask  the  man  who  would  maintain 
this  position  most  stiffly,  what  compensation  he  will  ac- 
cept to  go  to  church  some  Sunday  and  sit  during  the 
sermon  with  his  wife's  bonnet  on  his  head?  Not  a  trifle, 


1 66     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

I'll  venture.  And  why  not?  There  would  be  nothing 
irreligious  in  it;  nothing  immoral,  nothing  uncomfortable. 
Then  why  not?  Is  it  not  because  there  would  be  some- 
thing egregiously  unfashionable  in  it?  Then  it  is  the 
influence  of  fashion;  and  what  is  the  influence  of  fashion 
but  the  influence  that  other  people's  actions  have  upon 
our  own  actions;  the  strong  inclination  each  of  us  feels  to 
do  as  we  see  all  our  neighbors  do?  Nor  is  the  influence 
of  fashion  confined  to  any  particular  thing  or  class  of 
things.  It  is  just  as  strong  on  one  subject  as  another. 
Let  us  make  it  as  unfashionable  to  withhold  our  names 
from  the  temperance  pledge  as  for  husbands  to  wear  their 
wives'  bonnets  to  church,  and  instances  will  be  just  as 
rare  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 

"But,"  say  some,  "we  are  no  drunkards;  and  we  shall 
not  acknowledge  ourselves  such  by  joining  a  reformed 
drunkards'  society,  whatever  our  influence  might  be." 
Surely  no  Christian  will  adhere  to  this  objection.  If 
they  believe,  as  they  profess,  that  Omnipotence  condes- 
cended to  take  on  himself  the  form  of  sinful  man,  as  such, 
to  die  an  ignominous  death  for  their  sakes,  surely  they 
will  not  refuse  submission  to  the  infinitely  lesser  con- 
descension, for  the  temporal,  and  perhaps  eternal,  salva- 
tion of  a  large  erring  and  unfortunate  class  of  their  own 
fellow  creatures.  Nor  is  the  condescension  very  great. 

In  my  judgment,  such  of  us  as  have  never  fallen  vic- 
tims have  been  spared  more  from  the  absence  of  appetite 
than  from  any  mental  or  moral  superiority  over  those  who 
have.  Indeed,  I  believe,  if  we  take  habitual  drunkards 
as  a  class,  their  heads  and  hearts  will  bear  an  advan- 
tageous comparison  with  those  of  any  other  class.  There 
seems  ever  to  have  been  a  proneness  in  the  brilliant  and 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     167 

the  warm-blooded  to  fall  into  this  vice.  The  demon  of 
intemperance  ever  seems  to  have  delighted  in  sucking  the 
blood  of  genius  and  of  generosity.  What  one  of  us  but 
can  call  to  mind  some  dear  relative,  more  promising  in 
youth  than  all  of  his  fellows,  who  has  fallen  a  sacrifice  to 
his  rapacity?  He  ever  seems  to  have  gone  forth,  like  the 
Egyptian  angel  of  death,  commissioned  to  slay,  if  not  the 
first,  the  fairest  born  of  every  family.  Shall  he  now  be 
arrested  in  his  desolating  career?  In  that  arrest,  all  can 
give  aid  that  will;  and  who  shall  be  execused  that  can 
and  will  not?  Far  around  as  human  breath  has  ever 
blown,  he  keeps  our  fathers,  our  brothers,  our  sons,  and 
our  friends  prostrate  in  the  chains  of  moral  death.  To 
all  the  living  everywhere  we  cry,  "Come,  sound  the  moral 
resurrection  trump,  that  these  may  rise  and  stand  up,  an 
exceeding  great  army."  .  .  .  "Come  from  the  four 
winds,  O  breath!  arid  breathe  upon  these  slain,  that  they 
may  live." 

If  the  relative  grandeur  of  revolutions  shall  be  esti- 
mated by  the  great  amount  of  human  misery  they  allevi- 
ate, and  the  small  amount  they  inflict,  then,  indeed,  will 
this  be  the  grandest  the  world  shall  ever  have  seen.  Of 
our  political  revolution  of  '76  we  all  are  justly  proud. 
It  has  given  us  a  degree  of  political  freedom  far  exceed- 
ing that  of  any  other  of  the  nations  of  the  earth.  In  it 
the  world  has  found  a  solution  of  that  long-mooted  prob- 
lem as  to  the  capability  of  man  to  govern  himself.  In  it 
was  the  germ  which  has  vegetated,  and  still  is  to  grow 
and  expand,  into  the  universal  liberty  of  mankind. 

But  with  all  these  glorious  results,  past,  present,  and 
to  come,  it  had  its  evils  too.  It  breathed  forth  famine, 
swam  in  blood  and  rode  on  fire;  and  long,  long  after,  the 


1 68     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

orphan's  cry  and  widow's  wail  continue  to  break  the  sad 
silence  that  ensued.  These  were  the  price,  the  inevitable 
price,  paid  for  the  blessings  it  bought. 

Turn  now  to  the  temperance  revolution.  In  it  we 
shall  find  a  stronger  bondage  broken;  a  viler  slavery 
manumitted;  a  greater  tyrant  deposed.  In  it,  more  of 
want  supplied,  more  disease  healed,  more  sorrow  assuaged.  * 
By  it,  no  orphans  starving,  no  widows  weeping.  By  it, 
none  wounded  in  feeling,  none  injured  in  interest.  Even 
the  dram-maker,  and  the  dram-seller,  will  have  glided 
into  other  occupations  so  gradually  as  never  to  have  felt 
the  shock  of  change;  and  will  stand  ready  to  join  all 
others  in  the  universal  song  of  gladness. 

And  what  a  noble  ally  this,  to  the  cause  of  political 
freedom.  With  such  an  aid,  its  march  cannot  fail  to  be 
on  and  on,  until  every  son  on  earth  shall  drink  in  rich 
fruition  the  sorrow-quenching  draughts  of  perfect  liberty. 
Happy  day  when,  all  appetites  controlled,  all  passions  sub- 
dued, all  manners  subjected,  mind,  all-conquering  mind, 
shall  live  and  move,  the  monarch  of  the  world.  Glorious 
consumation!  Hail,  fall  of  Fury!  Reign  of  Reason,  all 
hail! 

And  when  the  victory  shall  be  complete — when  there 
shall  be  neither  a  slave  nor  a  drunkard  on  earth — how 
proud  the  title  of  that  land,  which  may  truly  claim  to 
be  the  birthplace  and  the  cradle  of  both  those  revolutions 
that  shall  have  ended  in  that  victory!  How  nobly  dis- 
tinguished that  people  who  shall  have  planted  and  nur- 
tured to  maturity  both  the  political  and  moral  freedom 
of  their  species! 

The  historical  fact  of  the  delivery  of  this  ad- 
dress is  attested  by  Lincoln  himself  in  letters 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     169 

written  to  friends  on  the  subject,  and  one  of  those 
was  to  George  E.  Pickett,  who  afterward  became 
the  famous  Confederate  general  who  led  the 
charge  at  Gettysburg,  and  whose  mother  a  few 
years  ago,  in  a  letter  to  one  of  the  American  mag- 
azines, gave  the  letter  in  full,  which  is  as  follows : 

The  fact  is,  truth  is  your  truest  friend,  no  matter  what 
the  circumstances  are.  I  have  a  congenital  aversion  to 
failure,  and  the  sudden  announcement  to  your  Uncle 
Andrew  of  the  success  of  your  "lamp-rubbing"  might 
possibly  prevent  your  passing  the  severe  physical  examina- 
tion to  which  you  will  be  subjected  in  order  to  enter  the 
Military  Academy.  You  see,  I  shall  like  to  have  a 
perfect  soldier  credited  to  dear  old  Illinois.  No  broken 
bones,  scalp  wounds,  etc.  So  I  think  it  might  be  wise 
to  hand  this  letter  from  me  in  to  your  good  uncle  through 
his  room  window  after  he  has  had  a  comfortable  dinner, 
and  watch  its  effect  from  the  top  of  the  pigeon  house. 

I  have  just  told  the  folks  here  in  Springfield,  on  this 
i nth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  him  whose  name,  mighti- 
est in  the  cause  of  moral  reformation,  we  mention  in 
solemn  awe,  in  naked,  deathless  splendor,  that  the  one 
victory  we  can  ever  call  complete  will  be  that  one  which 
proclaims  that  there  is  not  one  slave  or  drunkard  on  the 
face  of  God's  green  earth.  Recruit  for  this  victory. 

Now,  boy,  on  your  march,  don't  you  go  and  forget 
that  "one  drop  of  honey  catches  more  flies  than  a  gallon 
of  gall."  Load  your  musket  with  this  maxim,  and  smoke 
it  in  your  pipe. 

Another  letter  on  the  subject  is  to  Joshua  F. 
Speed,  one  of  the  dearest  and  best  friends  Lincoln 


KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

ever  had  in  his  young  manhood  and  in  Washing- 
ton : 

You  will  see  by  the  last  Sangamon  Journal  that  I  made 
a  temperance  speech  on  the  Twenty-second  of  February, 
which  I  claim  that  Fanny  and  you  shall  read  as  an  act 
of  charity  to  me,  for  I  can  not  learn  that  anybody  else 
has  read  it  or  is  likely  to.  Fortunately  it  is  not  very  long, 
and  I  shall  deem  it  sufficient  compliance  with  my  request 
if  one  of  you  listens  while  the  other  reads  it. 

It  would  be  thought  that  the  liquor  dealers 
would  never  dare  mention  the  name  of  Lincoln 
as  in  any  way  friendly  to  them,  but  they  have 
persisted  in  their  audacity  in  dragging  him  into 
their  support  even  up  to  the  present  time.  Not 
very  long  ago,  at  a  hearing  in  Albany  on  a  local 
option  bill  for  cities  of  the  third  class,  the  attorney 
of  the  State  Liquor  Dealers'  Association  made  an 
eloquent  speech  against  the  measure,  using  as  his 
peroration  a  part  of  this  speech  of  Lincoln  at 
Springfield  which  referred  to  personal  liberty, 
and  using  that  speech  to  claim  Lincoln  as  an  ally 
of  his  cause.  The  liquor  dealers,  who  were  out  in 
large  numbers,  and  brewers  and  distillers  leading 
in  the  fight,  cheered  the  gentleman  lustily  for  such 
a  capital  hit  in  his  speech.  I  sent  a  little  slip  to 
the  one  having  charge  of  our  side  of  the  hearing 
and  said:  "I  want  just  three  minutes  at  the 
close;"  and  in  those  three  minutes  I  said:  uMy 
able  friend  closed  his  address  most  eloquently  by  a 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  LINCOLN     171 

quotation  from  the  address  of  Lincoln  at  Spring- 
field, Illinois.  I  want  to  finish  that  address  for 
you."  And  then,  having  read  the  address  over 
so  many  dozens  of  times,  and  knowing  it  almost 
by  heart,  I  recited  the  part  where  Lincoln  pleaded 
for  the  cause  of  total  abstinence,  referring  to  the 
cruel  slavery  of  rum  to  the  body  and  mind,  and 
how  he  hoped  and  prayed  for  the  day  when  there 
would  be  neither  a  slave  nor  a  drunkard  on  the 
face  of  God's  green  earth,  and  the  friends  on  our 
side  of  the  house  burst  out  into  the  wildest  en- 
thusiasm. The  ruddy-faced  brewers  turned  red- 
der in  the  face,  and  they  set  on  their  attorney  in 
great  anger  with  their  complaints  that  he  should 
so  have  left  himself  open  to  criticism.  In  great 
excitement  and  discomfort  he  said,  "That  part 
that  Doctor  Iglehart  recited  is  not  in  Lincoln's 
speech  at  all;  Lincoln  never  said  anything  of  the 
kind,"  reaching  his  hand  toward  his  pocket  he 
said,  "I  have  the  book  and  you  can  read  it  for 
yourselves;  it  is  not  there."  This  occurred  after 
the  hearing  was  over.  Of  course  he  did  not  have 
that  part  against  his  business  in  his  liquor  dealers' 
book  which  was  printed  for  general  circulation. 
It  was  the  business  of  the  liquor  men  to  misrepre- 
sent him  as  they  always  do;  it  was  their  business 
to  take  a  piece  of  what  he  said  that  they  could 
distort  into  endorsement  of  themselves,  and  to 
leave  out  this  terrific  arraignment  of  their  busi- 
ness by  so  great  a  man. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES 

ABOUT  sixty  years  ago  a  wave  of  Prohibi- 
tion swept  over  the  Northern  States. 
Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont, 
Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  York,  Delaware, 
Michigan,  Indiana  and  Iowa  adopted  statutory 
prohibition.  One  State  after  another  dropped 
out  of  line  until  in  1907  Maine,  Kansas  and 
North  Dakota  were  the  only  ones  of  the  eighteen 
States  that  had  tried  the  experiment  of  Prohibi- 
tion that  retained  it,  they  having  adopted  consti- 
tutional Prohibition. 

In  1907  a  wave  of  popular  indignation  set  in 
which  has  moved  with  steady,  swift,  merciless 
fury  against  the  saloon. 

Ten  years  ago,  after  fifty  years  of  fighting, 
there  remained  but  three  dry  States.  In  a  short 
decade  twenty-three  more  States  have  been 
added  to  them,  making  more  than  a  majority  of 
all  the  States,  embracing  two-thirds  of  the  geogra- 
phical area,  and  over  a  half  of  the  population  of 
the  country. 

172 


PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES     173 

MAINE 

Col.  Fred  Dow,  son  of  the  great  General  Neal 
Dow,  known  throughout  this  country  and  the 
wide  world  as  the  father  of  prohibition  in  modern 
times,  the  worthy  successor  of  his  father  in  the 
realm  of  business,  moral  reform,  and  warfare  on 
the  liquor  traffic,  has  furnished  me  this  immensely 
important  information  on  Maine  and  Prohibition. 

In  1851  Maine  adopted  Prohibition.  The  novel  legis- 
lation became  widely  known  and  famous  as  "The  Maine 
Law."  Of  that  enactment  its  author  said:  "More  than 
any  other  measure  it  will  bless  the  people  who  adopt  it." 
The  immediate  benefits  in  Maine  traceable  to  Prohibi- 
tion were  so  great  as  to  justify  the  prediction  of  its 
author,  and  to  lead  twelve  States,  within  five  years,  to 
adopt  laws  largely  patterned  after  that  of  Maine;  and 
to-day  the  principle  of  "The  Maine  Law"  finds  wide  ap- 
proval in  this  and  other  lands.  All  this  testifies  to  the 
wisdom  and  virility  of  the  leadership  of  the  early  move- 
ment. Few  have  so  deeply  impressed  themselves  upon  the 
legislation  of  so  many  lands  as  did  Neal  Dow. 

Through  that  law  Maine  became  the  leader  of  a  re- 
formation destined  to  influence  many  States.  But  though 
honor  be  accorded  leadership,  danger  always  attends  it. 
Maine  incurred  the  hostility  of  the  liquor  interest,  drew 
all  the  criticism  and  condemnation  which  opposition  to 
Prohibition  could  bring  to  bear  upon  her,  became  from 
that  day  a  target  for  unmeasured  misrepresentation  on 
the  part  of  paid  and  volunteer  agents  of  the  liquor  pro- 
paganda, and  has  suffered  in  reputation  because  some 
honest  people  thus  misled  have  believed  and  repeated  it. 


i74     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Space  will  not  permit  notice  and  refutation  of  those 
misstatesments  in  detail.  Such  of  them  as  are  not  merely 
the  mouth-froth  of  a  kind  of  moral  delirium  tremens 
are  founded  only  on  isolated  instances,  sporadic  as  to  time 
and  place,  exploited  as  evidence  of  general  conditions. 
Such  tests  and  reasoning,  used  to  discredit  Prohibition  in 
Maine,  might  show  as  effectually  that  the  prohibitions  of 
the  Decalogue  would  better  be  permissions,  and  that  civil- 
ization is  a  curse  and  not  a  benefit  to  mankind.  Though  my 
opportunities  for  observation  in  Maine  and  for  acquiring 
knowledge  of  her  people  are  quite  up  to  the  average,  I 
know  of  no  justification  for  much  of  the  disparagement 
to  which  I  refer.  The  liquor  trade  is  not  entirely  elim- 
inated from  the  State.  Sixty  years  has  been  scant  time  for 
that.  So  also  some  of  the  Ten  Commandments,  though 
hoary  with  age,  are  yet  violated.  But  where  the  traffic 
drags  its  intermittent  existence  it  is  under  the  restraint 
of  the  fear  that  the  halter  of  the  law  about  its  neck  may 
at  any  moment  be  tightened  to  the  choking-point. 

To  the  same  effect  may  be  quoted  substantially  all  of 
the  men  of  Maine  who  won  national  fame  in  the  fifty 
to  sixty  years  following  the  enactment  of  Prohibition. 
They  were  competent  and  reliable  witnesses,  none  better 
to  be  found  anywhere.  They  were  such  that  Maine  men 
have  held  in  Washington,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  the 
positions  of  Secretary  of  State,  Speaker  of  the  House, 
Presidency  pro  tern,  of  the  Senate,  chairmanships  of  the 
committees  of  Ways  and  Means,  Commerce,  Appropria- 
tions, Navy,  and  Public  Buildings;  while  a  Maine  man 
born  and  matured  was  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court.  Among  the  nation-known  men 
from  Maine  who  during  their  lives  testified  to  the  efficacy 


PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES     175 

and  benefits  of  Prohibition  in  Maine  I  mention  Hannibal 
Hamlin,  William  Pitt  Fessenden,  Lot  M.  Morrill,  James 
G.  Elaine,  Eugene  Hale,  William  P.  Frye,  Thomas  B. 
Reed  and  Nelson  Dingley.  Who  knows  not  of  them  must 
be  himself  unknown.  Many  others  only  less  known  to 
fame  might  be  cited  for  the  same  purpose. 

Neal  Dow  advocated  Prohibition  among  other  reasons 
because,  as  he  claimed,  it  would  be  of  economical  benefit 
to  the  State.  Maine  adopted  his  views  in  1851.  The 
census  of  the  preceding  year  had  shown  Maine,  judged 
by  her  per  capita  wealth,  to  be  the  poorest  of  the  Atlantic 
Seabord  States.  Sixty  years  after,  her  per  capita  wealth 
had  increased  by  a  larger  percentage  than  that  of  any, 
save  one,  of  her  seacoast  sisters.  The  great  Empire  State 
of  New  York,  into  whose  coffers  the  commerce  of  the 
world  was  pouring  tribute  during  all  those  years,  escapes 
inclusion  by  less  than  two  per  cent.  But  between  1900 
and  1910  the  percentage  of  Maine  of  the  increased  value 
per  acre  of  all  farm  property,  land,  buildings,  implements 
and  live  stock  was  much  larger  than  that  in  New  York. 

Maine  in  1910  had  a  less  percentage  of  mortgaged 
farms  than  any  of  the  New  England,  Middle  States  and 
Maryland,  save  one.  That  State,  under  Prohibition 
nearly  as  long  as  Maine,  leads  her  by  one  per  cent.  The 
average  amount  of  farm  mortgage  debt  in  Maine  is  less 
than  in  any  of  the  States  mentioned  save  her  Prohibitory 
companion,  and  there  it  is  only  three  dollars  less;  while 
the  percentage  of  the  value  of  the  equity  in  all  mortgaged 
farms  is  larger  in  Maine  than  in  any  of  those  ten  States. 

Nor  has  Maine  neglected  the  productivity  of  her  farms. 
From  1899  to  1909  she  increased  the  amount  paid  for 
fertilizers  by  a  much  larger  percentage  than  did  any  of 


1 76     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

the  States  mentioned.  The  excess  she  paid  for  them  in 
ten  years,  over  an  average  for  the  period  equal  to  the 
amount  paid  in  1899,  would  have  discharged  all  her  farm 
mortgages,  with  seven  millions  of  dollars  over. 

I  claim  to  know  something  of  Maine  and  of  her  people. 
I  was  born  there,  have  always  lived  within  her  borders, 
and,  please  God,  I  expect  to  die  there.  Time  and  again 
I  have  traversed  her  territory  from  Kittery  to  Quody  and 
from  Katahdin  to  the  sea.  I  have  fished  in  her  streams 
and  lakes,  have  hunted  in  her  woods.  I  have  worn  over- 
alls, carried  a  dinner  pail  and  worked  with  her  mechanics. 
I  have  been  with  her  lumber  men  in  their  camps  and 
with  her  fishermen  on  their  smacks,  with  her  business  men 
in  their  counting-rooms  and  their  marts  of  trade,  have 
served  with  them  in  the  directorates  of  manufactures  and 
banking  and  railroad  corporations.  I  have  met  her  people 
in  their  schoolhouses,  their  churches,  their  halls,  on  their 
farms  and  in  their  homes.  I  have  held  elective  and  ap- 
pointive offices  among  them,  and  feel  that  I  am  familiar 
enough  to  express  an  intelligent  opinion  of  them.  And 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  declare,  without  fear  of  successful 
refutation,  as  the  result  of  a  most  careful  investigation, 
in  substantially  the  language  of  James  G.  Elaine,  used 
by  him  a  few  years  before  his  death,  that  nowhere  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  world  can  be  found  an  equal  number  of 
people  better  founded  in  all  the  essentials  of  good  citizen- 
ship and  consuming  a  smaller  quantity  of  intoxicating 
liquors  than  the  people  of  Maine.  And  I  think,  as  do 
thousands  of  her  citizens,  that  the  State  in  indebted  to 
Prohibition  for  much  of  this. 

A  short  time  before  his  death,  my  father  was  speaking 
of  the  possibilities  of  a  nation  free  from  the  evils  pertain- 


PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES     177 

ing  to  a  legalized  liquor  traffic.  And  I  said  to  him, 
"father,  you  surely  cannot  expect  to  live  to  see  that."  With 
eyes  brilliant  with  the  light  of  his  glorious  belief  in  im- 
mortality which  he  cherished  to  the  last,  he  said:  "I  surely 
do,  but  it  will  be  from  the  other  side." 

SENATOR  FERNALD 

Prohibition  has  done  much  for  Maine.  This 
was  true  even  in  the  period  before  the  present  era 
of  enforcement,  when  in  many  sections  of  the 
State  the  law  was  ignored.  It  was  true,  even  in 
the  territory  where  the  most  flagrant  nullification 
existed.  True,  because  in  those  sections  one  did 
not  find  the  open  saloon  and  open  drinking.  By 
the  very  manner  in  which  the  saloons  were  con- 
ducted under  the  systems,  known  variously  as  the 
Peters  plan,  the  Bangor  plan,  the  Androscoggin 
plan  and  the  Pennell  plan,  there  was  thrown 
about  it  an  atmosphere  of  shame.  The  youth  of 
our  State,  unconsciously  imbibed  the  idea  that 
drinking  was  disgraceful;  that  it  was  something 
to  be  hidden  from  the  public. 

But  there  is  far  more  to  it.  Our  State  has 
grown  under  Prohibition.  Examine  the  banking 
reports  of  Maine  and  compare  the  savings  per 
capita  of  its  citizens  with  those  of  license  States 
and  the  finding  will  be  in  our  favor. 

Visit  other  States  and  examine  the  personnel 
of  its  men,  its  leaders,  if  you  please.  I  care  not 
whether  you  look  to  members  of  the  legal  profes- 


i78     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

sion  or  to  that  of  medicine  or  to  the  business  men, 
you  will  find  men  from  Maine  constitute  these 
leaders.  You  will  find  them  everywhere  and  you 
will  find  them  in  the  forefront  of  affairs;  judges 
of  courts,  engineers  of  great  undertakings,  heads 
of  larger  mercantile  and  manufacturing  establish- 
ments. No  State  has  furnished  so  many  men  of 
brains  and  leadership  to  the  other  States  as  has 
Maine.  We  have  sent  our  young  men  and  our 
young  women  out  into  the  rest  of  the  country  to 
help  in  its  upbuilding,  to  pilot  those  other  States, 
and  yet  we  have  not  lost  in  population,  but  have 
gradually  increased. 

And,  now,  look  at  Maine  as  an  industrial  State. 
Go  into  our  manufacturing  centers  and  what  do 
you  find?  No  such  slums  as  one  so  easily  locates 
in  similar  centers  of  license  districts.  You  do  not 
find  the  want  and  squalor  or  the  degeneracy 
in  Maine  that  you  find  in  wet  States. 

Prohibition  has  given  our  boys  and  girls  a 
greater  stamina,  a  better  intelligence,  a  greater 
regard  for  sobriety,  morality  and  honesty.  It  has 
helped  to  make  the  citizenship  of  Maine  the  best 
in  the  Union. 

GOVERNOR  MILLIKEN 

Few  will  deny  that  Prohibition  prohibits  at  the 
present  time  in  Maine.  Under  the  brave  and  de- 
termined administration  of  Governor  Milliken 
the  law  is  respected  and  enforced, 


PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES     179 

In  a  letter  addressed  to  me,  July  17,  1917, 
Governor  Milliken  says:  "It  goes  without  say- 
ing that  we  believe  in  the  advances  of  Prohibi- 
tion for  the  State  of  Maine.  I  am  doing  my  ut- 
most for  a  thorough,  honest,  and  State-wide  en- 
forcement of  the  law,  and  the  results,  as  a  rule, 
are  very  satisfactory." 

The  bootleggers  whose  wares  are  confiscated, 
as  well  as  the  district  attorneys  and  sheriffs  who 
if  they  dared  would  wink  at  the  non-enforcement 
of  the  law,  know  full  well  how  strictly  the  Pro- 
hibitory law  is  administered. 

A  gentleman  told  me  the  other  day  that  a 
prosecuting  attorney  of  a  certain  Maine  county 
went  to  Augusta  at  the  call  of  the  Governor.  He 
had  his  resignation  already  written  out  and 
handed  it  to  the  Governor,  who  accepted  it.  He 
had  been  playing  false  with  the  State,  forgetting 
his  oath  and  betraying  the  people  in  shutting  one 
eye  to  the  illicit  traffic  in  intoxicants.  The  day 
when  any  sheriff  or  district  attorney  can  make 
himself  judge  and  jury  and  allow  the  liquor  law 
to  be  nullified  has  gone  by. 

KANSAS 

Governor  Arthur  Capper  of  Kansas  gave  me 
the  following: 

When  I  first  went  to  Topeka  there  were  fifty  or  sixty 
saloons.  The  jails  were  filled  most  of  the  time.  The 


i8o     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

"Daily  Capital"  rarely  had  enough  men  to  do  its  work 
the  day  after  pay  day.  Indeed,  I  got  my  first  job  on 
that  paper  because  too  many  of  the  printers  were  absent 
from  drink  and  the  foreman  was  willing  to  take  any  one. 
It  was  a  wide-open  town.  Even  up  to  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  ago  I  believe  a  majority  of  the  leading  business  men 
favored  high  license,  under  the  impression  that  saloons 
were  needed  if  the  town  was  to  be  a  live  place,  and 
especially  for  the  revenue  they  contributed. 

But  ultimately,  through  a  period  of  observation,  of 
education,  these  business  men  learned  that  they  might  as 
wisely  license  morphine  or  cocaine.  They  discovered  that 
their  fears  about  revenues  were  groundless  and  that  the 
town  lived  and  prospered  amazingly  under  the  rule  of 
decency. 

When  I  went  to  Topcka  the  men  in  my  trade  never 
had  anything  except  trouble  and  unpaid  bills  and  head- 
aches. Now  the  majority  of  the  printers  own  their  homes, 
many  have  motor  cars;  they  have  their  vacations  now, 
with  their  families;  they  are  good  citizens.  A  few  months 
ago  a  printer  in  the  "Daily  Capital"  plant  received  a  check 
for  $10,000  from  the  ^Etna  Building  and  Loan  Society, 
representing  his  savings  and  interest.  In  the  same  plant, 
of  which  I  am  the  owner,  we  have  a  savings  society  with 
more  than  a  hundred  members,  which  includes  printers, 
pressmen,  and  stereotypers,  all  of  whom  save  a  certain 
part  of  their  wages  every  week.  The  number  of  arrests 
in  Topeka  for  drunkenness  has  constantly  decreased, 
though  our  population  is  steadily  increasing. 

As  a  strictly  business  proposition  Prohibition  has  paid 
big  dividends  in  Kansas.  Its  strongest  advocates  in  the 
State  are  the  large  employers  of  labor,  the  managers  of 


PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES     181 

the  big  railroad  properties,  and  the  labor  organizations. 
More  than  4,000  men  are  employed  in  the  Santa  Fe  rail- 
way shops  at  Topeka — the  dryest  city  of  its  size  in  the 
world.  Those  shops  maintain  the  highest  degree  of  effi- 
ciency of  any  on  the  Santa  Fe  system.  The  books  show 
that  they  turn  out  more  work,  consistently  and  promptly 
the  year  round,  than  any  other  railroad  shops.  Seventy- 
two  per  cent,  of  the  married  men  in  these  shops  own  their 
homes — a  showing  that  cannot  be  equaled  by  any  other 
railway  town  in  America. 

On  a  dollar  basis,  merely,  Prohibition  has  paid.  As 
to  the  domestic  side,  the  records  of  a  survey  show  that  the 
families  of  the  shopmen  are,  of  course,  in  very  much  better 
condition  than  those  in  license  States.  Naturally  they  have 
more  money  to  spend.  There  is  far  less  family  trouble. 
There  are  fewer  divorces.  The  children  and  the  wives 
wear  better  clothes;  they  live  happier  lives.  The  fathers' 
earnings  go  to  the  family  support  instead  of  to  the  saloons. 

We  are  not  paying  dearly  for  this  decency.  The  State 
tax  in  Kansas  in  only  $1.30  per  thousand,  the  lowest,  with 
two  exceptions,  in  the  United  States.  Compared  with 
like  cities,  Topeka's  taxes  are  no  higher  and  certainly  are 
not  sufficiently  burdensome  to  bring  a  protest  from  the 
people.  Any  student  of  such  facts  knows  that  no  saloon 
ever  contributed  enough  taxes  to  pay  for  the  trouble  it 
caused.  No  one  ever  heard  of  the  liquor  interests  pro- 
ducing enough  revenue  to  pay  for  the  police  and  the  jails 
and  the  courts  needed  to  hold  the  criminals  the  saloons 
create.  It  is  still  the  custom  of  wet  communities,  in  wet 
or  semi-wet  States,  to  pave  the  streets  and  roads  with 
fines  from  vice  resorts,  while  these  resorts  pave  the  way 
to  perdition  for  the  young  people;  but  the  cities  of  Kansas 


1 82  KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

that  have  received  no  revenue  whatever  from  vice  have  a 
lower  tax  rate  than  those  cities  which  in  the  old  days 
stuck  to  the  last  to  the  license-fining  system.  More  than 
five  million  dollars  was  spent  by  the  cities  of  Kansas  in 
the  year  ending  June  30,  1916,  for  paving,  electric  light, 
parks,  waterworks  and  other  improvements,  but  not  a 
dollar  was  contributed  by  the  liquor  traffic  or  commercial- 
ized vice.  To-day  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  slum  or 
licensed  red-light  district  in  any  city  in  Kansas.  Nowhere 
in  all  the  civilized  world  are  moral  conditions  cleaner  and 
better  than  in  Prohibition  Kansas. 

Prohibition  has  been  in  operation  thirty-six  years  in 
Kansas.  If  the  people  were  not  satisfied  with  the  law  and 
the  conditions  it  has  produced  they  certainly  could  have 
changed  them  long  ago.  It  seems  to  me,  as  the  lawyers 
say,  that  the  people  themselves  are  the  best  evidence.  The 
surest  way  to  bring  about  the  repeal  of  an  objectionable 
law  is  to  enforce  it.  We  enforce  the  prohibitory  law  in 
Topeka  and  in  the  State  and  I  have  seen  no  disposition 
to  repeal  it.  Certainly  not  on  the  score  of  taxes. 

The  last  defense  of  the  saloon  is  the  plea  that  its  rev- 
enue helps  to  pay  the  taxes.  It  does,  but  it  does  it  at 
a  cost  of  blood,  of  broken  hearts  and  wrecked  homes  as 
well  as  of  dollars  and  cents.  The  saloon,  wherever  it 
exists,  is  our  greatest  public  debt-maker,  our  greatest  pub- 
lic burden. 

Kansas  sends  more  boys  and  girls  to  public  schools,  to 
the  university  and  the  colleges,  in  proportion  to  popula- 
tion, than  any  other  State  in  the  Union.  Kansas  is  one 
of  the  two  States  in  the  Union  having  the  smallest  num- 
ber of  persons  who  cannot  read  and  write — less  than  two 
per  cent,  of  its  population.  According  to  an  investigation 


PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES     183 

completed  in  1914  and  authenticated  by  the  Federal 
Health  Department,  Kansas  has  a  death  rate  of  9.8,  the 
lowest  of  any  State  in  the  Union  comprised  within  the 
registration  area  recognized  by  the  government. 

Kansas  is  one  of  the  few  States  in  the  Union  without 
bonded  indebtedness.  The  last  outstanding  bond  was 
taken  up  January  I,  1916. 

I  have  laid  stress  upon  the  testimony  of  the  people  of 
Kansas  themselves.  Let  me  give  this  testimony  in  a  little 
detail : 

Every  Governor  of  Kansas  for  twenty- two  years  has 
said  over  his  signature  that  Prohibition  is  a  great  success. 

Every  member  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Kansas  and 
every  State  official  says  that  Prohibition  succeeds. 

More  than  700  of  the  780  Kansas  editors  in  State  con- 
vention, including  newspapers  of  every  political  faith, 
unanimously  endorsed  Prohibition. 

Every  political  party  in  Kansas  favors  the  prohibitory 
law,  and  has  endorsed  the  law  in  its  platform. 

No  minister  in  Kansas  ever  opens  his  mouth  in  favor 
of  returning  to  the  licensed  saloon,  nor  any  teacher. 

From  our  experience  of  successful  Prohibition  in  Kansas 
we  stand  for  and  demand  Prohibition  for  the  nation. 

SENATOR  CHARLES  CURTIS 

United  States  Senator  Curtis  of  Kansas  gave 
me  the  following  facts: 

There  are  many  and  substantial  benefits  from  Prohibi- 
tion, which  is  now  a  settled  policy  in  the  State.  The 
people  are  well  satisfied  with  the  law  and  are  insisting 
upon  its  rigid  enforcement.  The  many  legislatures  since 


184     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

its  first  enactment  in  1881  have  strengthened  the  law, 
and  the  sentiment  in  favor  of  the  law  has  grown  stronger 
and  stronger  each  year.  Our  people  believe  it  has  been 
a  great  success  and  that  many  benefits  have  resulted  from 
the  Constitutional  amendment  and  the  legislation  enacted 
since  the  adoption  of  it. 

The  official  reports  of  the  various  counties  in  the  State 
show  a  decrease  in  crime  and  a  great  reduction  in  the 
number  of  the  poor  supported  by  county  authorities.  In 
1914  there  were  twenty-eight  counties  in  Kansas  that 
did  not  have  a  single  prisoner  in  jail  during  all  of  that 
year;  there  were  forty-eight  counties  in  which  there  were 
no  convicts  sent  to  the  State  Penitentiary  during  the 
year;  in  twelve  counties  no  jury  has  been  required  to  try 
a  criminal  case  in  a  number  of  years.  In  1914  there  were 
twenty  counties  without  a  prisoner  in  the  State  Peniten- 
tiary, and  of  the  740  prisoners  in  the  State  Penitentiary 
in  that  year,  forty  per  cent,  of  them  were  non-residents 
of  the  State;  thirty-eight  county  poor  farms  had  no  in- 
mates, and  there  was  only  one  pauper  in  the  State  to 
every  three  thousand  of  its  population. 

There  are  thousands  of  young  men  and  women  in  the 
State  who  never  saw  a  saloon,  and  there  are  thousands 
who  have  never  seen  a  drunken  man  within  the  State. 
It  seems  to  me  that  these  facts,  presented  from  the  records, 
are  the  best  evidence  of  the  success  of  Prohibition  in  Kan- 
sas, and  they  are  the  best  answer  that  can  be  made  to  the 
many  false  claims  that  have  been  sent  out  by  the  liquor 
interests. 

WILLIAM  ALLEN  WHITE 

I  wrote  to  Mr.  William  Allen  White,  known 
throughout  the  nation  as  editor  and  author,  for 


PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES     185 

facts  about  Prohibition  in  Kansas  and  he  sent  me 
these: 

Prohibition  is  not  responsible  for  all  the  good  things 
in  Kansas.  Our  soil  is  rich;  our  people  are  the  native 
American  stock  with  a  strong  infusion  of  blood  from  the 
north  of  Europe.  Our  climate  is  equitable,  and  our  rain- 
fall on  the  whole  dependable  and  plenteous.  And  we 
have  made  Prohibition  succeed  somewhat  because  of  these 
things  rather  than  that  Prohibition  has  brought  these 
things.  Yet  there  are  certain  earmarks  of  Kansas  that 
are  distinctly  Prohibition  earmarks. 

I  should  say  that  the  first  thing  for  which  Kansans  are 
to  be  grateful,  as  a  distinct  result  of  the  abolition  of  the 
saloon,  is  a  clean  State  politics.  There  is  practically  no 
corruption  or  bribery  in  the  State.  That  doesn't  mean 
that  there  is  no  corruption  or  bribery.  Our  voters  are  not 
all  "just  men  made  perfect;"  but  corruption  and  bribery 
are  as  negligible  here  as  leprosy  is  in  our  social  order.  We 
have  built  up  a  whole  race  of  politicians  who  are  not 
afraid  of  the  liquor  interests,  because  there  are  no  liquor 
interests  in  Kansas.  That  does  not  mean  that  there  is 
no  liquor  sold  in  Kansas,  for  there  is  plenty  of  it — more 
of  it  than  there  should  be.  This  is  a  town  of  ten  thou- 
sand people,  and  I  have  no  doubt  whatever  that  at  the 
Christmas  time  a  hundred  quart  bottles  of  whisky  were 
sold  in  violation  of  the  law  the  night  before  Christmas, 
which  means,  of  course,  that  the  bootlegger  fram  Kansas 
City  brought  down  in  his  suit  case  or  had  shipped  to  him, 
disguised  as  nails  or  whatnot,  this  liquor  in  small  bottles ; 
that  he  went  skulking  around  the  dark  corners  of  the 
town  Friday  and  Saturday  nights  before  Christmas,  beck- 


1 86    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

oning  such  wayfarers  as  he  thought  might  buy  his  wares, 
and  that  he  sold  his  wares.  But  one  hundred  quarts  of 
liquor  divided  among  ten  thousand  people  is  not  an  im- 
portant violation  of  the  law.  It  would  be  as  wise  to  say 
that  our  marriage  laws  were  a  failure  because  of  the 
occasional  violation  of  the  statutes  against  adultery,  as  to 
say  Prohibition  fails  because  an  occasional  bootlegger, 
flitting  up  an  alley,  disposes  of  an  occasional  quart  of 
liquor. 

The  bootlegger  has  no  place  of  business.  He  can  only 
be  found  by  those  who  are  willing  to  labor  and  wait, 
and  he  can  have  no  influence  on  our  politics.  His  whole 
force  combined  in  this  town  would  consist  of  half  a 
dozen  colored  men  and  one  or  two  mangy,  half-starved 
white  men,  and  that  wouldn't  be  any  liquor  interest  that 
any  politician  would  not  be  glad  to  kick  in  passing.  So 
that,  as  I  said,  the  net  gain  we  have  received  from  Pro- 
hibition is  clean  politics.  When  a  man  runs  for  office 
a  good  man  is  not  beaten  because  of  his  belief  in  Pro- 
hibition and  a  bad  man  is  not  elected  because  of  his  friend- 
ship for  the  liquor  interests.  Liquor  is  "out  on  the  hills 
away"  from  our  politics,  and  that  is  an  unquestionable 
gain. 

It  seems  to  me  also  that  the  abolition  of  the  saloon  has 
reduced  crime  in  Kansas,  and  that  it  has  something  to 
do — not  everything,  but  something  to  do — with  our  phe- 
nomenal prosperity.  We  do  not  patronize  savings  banks. 
We  are  an  agricultural  people,  but  we  have  a  large  com- 
parative per  capita  of  wealth — larger  than  any  other  agri- 
cultural State  of  our  age,  in  this  part  of  the  West — and 
I  think  Prohibition  has  helped.  But  the  thing  Prohibi- 
tion has  done  is  to  improve  the  tone  of  the  State;  to  make 


PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES     187 

it  possible  to  appeal  to  the  people  on  moral  issues  and  to 
make  possible  a  response  from  the  people  to  moral  issues. 

Now  these  opinions  on  Prohibition  are  not  mine  alone. 
I  took  occasion  recently  to  address  various  representative 
heads  of  the  various  organized  activities  of  the  State — 
political,  professional,  agricultural,  commercial  and  indus- 
trial— receiving  from  them  all  the  positive  statement  that 
Prohibition  does  prohibit,  and  that  Prohibition  is  an  un- 
mixed blessing  to  the  material,  mental  and  moral  welfare 
of  the  State. 

NORTH  DAKOTA 

Hon.  Charles  A.  Pollock,  ex-United  States 
Judge  of  Fargo,  North  Dakota,  has  given  me  a 
history  of  the  war  against  the  saloon  in  North 
Dakota  and  of  his  relation  to  it.  His  testimony 
will  be  taken  as  authority  on  any  question,  judicial 
or  moral,  anywhere  in  this  country.  Judge  Pol- 
lock writes : 

Prohibition  refers  to  a  governmental  method  of  dealing 
with  an  admitted  evil;  total  abstinence  to  the  habit  or 
personal  practice  of  the  individual.  It  often  happens  that 
a  heavy  drinker  is  in  favor  of  Prohibition  simply  for  per- 
sonal protection.  He  is  perfectly  consistent  in  so  acting, 
although  he  may  meet  with  much  criticism.  It  was  by 
keeping  these  distinctions  before  our  people,  in  the  fight 
which  began  over  thirty-five  years  ago,  that  we  were  later, 
in  the  year  1899,  enabled  to  secure  the  adoption  of  the 
Prohibitory  clause  of  our  constitution  against  the  manu- 


1 88  KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

facture,  sale  and  keeping  for  sale,  of  intoxicating  liquors 
as  a  beverage. 

During  Territorial  days  I  was  the  prosecuting  officer 
under  the  license  system  and  for  the  past  twenty  years 
have  been  the  sole  presiding  Judge  of  the  Third  Judicial 
District,  which  includes  the  counties  of  Cass,  Traill  and 
Steele.  It  is  from  the  standpoint  of  experience  in  courts, 
as  well  as  my  general  information  concerning  the  develop- 
ment of  Prohibition  in  the  Territory  of  Dakota  and  State 
of  North  Dakota,  that  I  now  speak. 

To  properly  understand  what  is  possible  in  the  future 
permit  me  just  a  word  as  to  what  has  been  done  by  the 
past  generation,  of  say,  thirty-five  years  in  this  Territory 
and  State.  Those  who  came  in  the  early  eighties  will 
tell  you,  "Rum  was  king."  It  ruled  our  politics.  It 
stalked  abroad  in  council  chamber  and  legislative  hall. 
City,  county  and  Territorial  governments  were  under  its 
grasp.  The  saloon  boss  controlled  the  polls.  The  ab- 
sence of  a  legally  constituted  ballot  under  the  Australian 
system  and  a  secret  polling  booth  enabled  the  bogus 
single  ballot,  in  the  hands  of  the  licensed  saloonkeepers 
and  their  allies,  to  determine  who  should  receive  the  ma- 
jority vote.  Every  village  and  hamlet  had  its  full  quota 
of  saloons.  Farmers  in  the  proper  control  of  their  help 
were  embarrassed,  delayed  and  annoyed.  The  rainy  day 
was  a  terror.  Stabbing  affrays  and  murders  were  of  fre- 
quent occurrence.  Scant  police  protection  could  not  afford 
relief.  Business  men  were  clamoring  for  no  change,  lest 
their  sales  would  be  injured,  rents  decrease  and  general 
stagnation  follow.  Young  men  were  growing  up,  feeling 
that  the  business  of  the  saloonkeeper  was  respectable  and 
the  open  sesame  of  political  preferment.  There  was,  of 


PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES     189 

course,  here  and  there,  the  occasional  mortgage  fore- 
closure— for  then  the  country  was  new — because  the 
owner  of  the  farm  had  squandered  all  in  drink.  Business 
and  professional  men  generally  drank.  In  Fargo,  with 
few  exceptions,  the  followers  of  Blackstone,  numbering 
about  forty,  were  regular  members  of  more  than  one  bar. 
Many  became  habitual  drinkers,  and  most  of  them  were 
among  the  so-called  moderate  class.  Six  of  the  most 
brilliant  now  fill  untimely  graves — the  direct  result  of  the 
liquor  habit. 

Now,  exactly  the  reverse  condition  exists.  In  Cass, 
my  home  county,  there  are  sixty-five  men  entitled  to 
practice.  All  of  our  leading  lawyers,  with  rare  excep- 
tions, are  total  abstainers,  and  only  three  or  four  can  be 
classed  even  as  moderate  drinkers.  When  we  consider 
the  influence  which  the  lawyer  can  exert  for  good  or  evil, 
fortunate  indeed  is  that  community  whose  legal  fraternity 
is  composed  of  sober  men. 

Some  facts  may  help  to  show  that  Prohibition  as  a 
method  of  dealing  with  the  traffic  helps  instead  of  hurts 
the  true  development  of  the  State.  For  example,  when 
admitted  as  a  State  both  with  Prohibitory  clauses  in  their 
Constitutions,  South  Dakota,  with  about  1,000  more 
square  miles  of  territory,  had  about  250,000  population, 
while  North  Dakota  had  but  190,000.  South  Dakota 
went  back  to  license  in  1894  and  nas  been  under  it  until 
recently.  She  now  has  less  than  600,000,  while  North 
Dakota,  continuously  under  Prohibition,  has  about  650,- 
OOO  inhabitants. 

In  North  Dakota  the  per  capita  wealth  was  increased 
from  $1,114  in  1890  to  $2,000  in  1910.  In  the  Peni- 
tentiary were  found  at  the  end  of  the  same  period  only 


1 90     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

1.4  prisoners  for  every  5,000  inhabitants.  The  products 
of  our  soil,  mines  and  farming  industries  in  1915  were 
over  $250,000,000.  We  have  650  State  and  151  Na- 
tional banks,  carrying  a  total  deposit  for  March,  1916, 
of  $116,062,027.  The  combined  resources  of  the  banks 
,  in  Fargo  alone  are  $13,000,000. 

It  is  interesting  to  study  the  combined  statement  of  the 
State  banks  alone,  as  showing  the  prosperity  of  our  people. 
From  December  31,  1915,  to  March  7,  1916,  there  was  an 
increase  in  time  certificates  of  deposit  of  $3,506,157.67, 
thus  showing  the  savings  of  our  people.  More  might  be 
said  did  the  length  of  this  article  permit.  The  fact  that 
sporadic  cases  of  law  violation  occur  argues  nothing 
against  the  system.  Prohibition,  both  constitutional  and 
statutory,  in  this  State  has  come  to  stay,  not  only  because 
it  is  morally  right,  but  because  it  is  also  economically  the 
better  system  of  dealing  with  a  traffic  which  undermines 
the  health  and  happiness  of  the  community. 

GOVERNOR  FRAZIER 

111  answer  to  a  letter  of  inquiry,  Governor 
Lynn  J.  Frazier  of  North  Dakota,  has  sent  me 
this  brief  but  unequivocal  testimony  to  the  suc- 
cess of  Prohibition  in  his  State : 

I  have  no  hesitancy  in  writing  you  that  Prohibition  has 
been  a  clearly  defined  success  in  North  Dakota.  This 
fact  is  so  well  established  that  it  is  not  questioned  by 
any  one  familiar  with  conditions  in  our  State. 

The  saloon  was  thrust  out  of  our  midst  many  years 
ago.  Its  record  while  here  was  not  such  as  to  commend 


PIONEER  PROHIBITION  STATES     191 

it  for  further  consideration  at  the  hands  of  our  voters,  and 
resubmission  has  never  been  a  live  issue  in  any  political 
campaign. 

I  take  pleasure  in  recommending  Prohibition  to  all  con- 
sidering its  enactment  into  law. 

SENATOR  GRONNA 

United  States  Senator  Gronna  of  North  Da- 
kota has  given  me  his  opinion  as  an  expert  wit- 
ness on  the  succes^  of  the  fight  against  the  saloon 
in  his  State  and  his  efficient  relationship  to  it.  This 
is  the  clear,  able  and  unanswerable  testimony  he 
gave  to  the  effect  that  Prohibition  prohibits  in 
North  Dakota : 

Having  lived  in  the  Territory  of  Dakota  and  in  the 
State  of  North  Dakota  for  thirty-seven  years,  I  know  the 
country  from  its  infancy;  and  I  also  know  that  Prohibi- 
tion has  been  the  most  potent  factor  in  our  rapid  growth 
and  advancement. 

The  early  pioneers  of  that  Territory  consisted  mainly 
of  poor  people  who  took  possession  of  it  when  it  was 
known  as  a  barren  v/aste.  At  any  rate,  it  was  altogether 
undeveloped  some  forty  years  ago.  It  has  been  changed 
from  a  wilderness  to  one  of  the  most  productive  areas  on 
the  American  continent.  The  pioneer,  or  the  home- 
steader, soon  discovered  the  need  of  man  power  in  order 
to  cultivate  and  develop  the  millions  of  acres  of  virgin 
soil,  where  for  centuries  the  Indian  and  the  buffalo  had 
roamed.  The  early  pioneers  consisted  of  young  men  and 
young  women,  who  in  the  early  Territorial  days  realized 


192     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

the  importance  of  conserving  human  energy.  To  accomp- 
lish this  a  temperance  revolution  was  necessary;  control 
of  the  mind  and  the  appetites  of  man  was  necessary.  All 
poisonous  matters  had  to  he  subdued.  The  saloon  had 
to  be  eradicated;  the  great  tyrant,  John  Barleycorn,  had 
to  be  deposed;  the  dram-maker  and  the  dram-seller  had 
gradually  to  find  other  occupations  where  they  could  be 
more  useful  to  themselves  and  their  families,  ready  to 
join  all  others  in  the  universal  song  of  gladness,  because 
of  the  opportunity  to  rear  their  families  in  the  wholesome 
atmosphere  of  temperance.  • 

In  production  and  resources  our  State  has  made  the 
most  wonderful  progress;  in  education  and  intelligence 
the  most  marvelous  advancement  has  been  made  by  our 
people.  A  second  generation  has  grown  to  manhood  and 
womanhood  and  consists  of  a  healthy,  virile,  and  intelli- 
gent class  of  young  men  and  women.  The  abolition  of 
the  liquor  traffic  and  the  temperance  habits  of  the  first 
generation  already  manifests  its  effect  upon  the  second,  or 
new  generation. 

A  great  many  progressive  reforms  have  been  enacted 
into  law,  and  in  no  State  in  the  Union  has  more  progres- 
sive legislation  been  written  into  law  than  in  our  State. 

Our  people  are  not  extremely  wealthy,  nor  are  they 
extremely  poor.  It  is  true  that  we  have  very  few  mil- 
lionaires; neither  have  we  a  single  poorhouse  in  the  State. 
Our  condition  is  not  yet  perfect,  but  with  our  sober  and 
enlightened  people,  the  march  of  a  mighty  people  will 
in  the  near  future  make  greater  progress.  Prohibition 
will  manifest  itself  as  a  distinct  blessing  for  the  improve- 
ment and  the  betterment  of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  IX 

ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  SUNDAY  SALOON 

IN  no  form  of  lawlessness  have  the  saloons 
been  more  flagrant  than  in  the  infraction  of 
the  Sunday  closing  law.     Few  things  have 
so  stirred  the  American  conscience  to  a  hatred  of 
the  saloon  and  a  determination  to  destroy  it  as 
has  its  persistent  assault  upon  the  Lord's  Day.  In 
no  place  has  there  been  such  open  and  notorious 
and  shameful  violation  of  the  Civil  Sabbath  by 
the  saloons  as  in  New  York  City,  the  wettest  spot 
in  America. 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  when  Police  Commis- 
sioner of  New  York,  gave  an  order  that  on  the 
next  Sunday  all  saloons  were  to  be  closed,  and 
that  if  the  proprietors  did  not  close  them  they 
would  be  arrested  by  the  police  and  prosecuted 
for  an  infraction  of  the  State  law.  As  pastor  of 
the  Park  Avenue  Methodist  Church,  New  York 
City,  I  preached  a  sermon  on  that  Sunday  morn- 
ing asking  the  people  of  our  church  and  Method- 
ists generally,  and  the  ministers  and  members  of 
all  denominations,  Protestant,  Catholic  and  He- 
brew, and  the  citizens  who  were  members  of  no 

193 


i94     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

church  who  loved  law  and  order,  to  stand  behind 
Mr.  Roosevelt  in  his  effort  to  compel  the  law- 
defying  and  crime-breeding  saloon  to  close  on 
Sunday.  Sure  enough,  some  of  the  liquor  deal- 
ers, who  had  always  been  stronger  than  the  law 
and  authorities,  considered  the  threat  a  joke  and 
kept  open.  And,  of  course,  the  Commissioner  was 
in  dead  earnest  and  not  joking,  and  with  his 
strong  intellect  and  determined  will  put  six  thous- 
and policemen  on  the  job  of  detecting  and  arrest- 
ing these  lawbreakers.  He  scared  the  brewers, 
distillers  and  saloon-keepers  till  they  fairly  shiv- 
ered and  their  teeth  chattered  with  fear. 

On  the  Monday  morning  following  I  went 
down  to  the  police  headquarters  to  see  Commis- 
sioner Roosevelt.  I  said  to  him,  "Mr.  Roose- 
velt, you  do  not  know  me;  I  never  met  you;  I  saw 
you  once.  It  was  at  the  National  Republican 
Convention  in  Chicago  which  named  James  G. 
Elaine  for  the  Presidency  and  John  A.  Logan  for 
the  Vice-Presidency.  You  were  in  the  New  York 
delegation,  in  the  group  with  George  William 
Curtis.  You  had  on  a  little  straw  hat  and  were 
not  so  fleshy  as  you  are  now.  You  were  young, 
had  not  been  long  out  of  Harvard,  but  were  one 
of  the  notables  of  the  Convention  and  was  pointed 
out  to  me  as  such.  I  did  not  speak  to  you  nor 
have  I  seen  you  since  that  day.  I  have  come 
down  this  morning  to  introduce  myself  to  you, 
and  to  congratulate  you  on  your  courage  in  de- 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  SALOON     195 

termining  to  close  the  Sunday  saloons.  The  town 
has  waited  for  twenty-five  years  for  the  coming 
of  such  a  man.  It  ought  not  to  be  counted  a 
heroic  thing  for  a  man  to  keep  his  oath  solemnly 
made  and  to  earn  his  salary  by  the  discharge  of 
his  official  duty,  but  the  moral  sense  of  the  com- 
munity is  so  low  through  the  polluting  influence 
of  the  liquor  dealers,  and  their  collusion  with  cor- 
rupt officials,  that  a  man  is  counted  a  hero  who 
dares  keep  his  oath  to  enforce  the  law  or  earn  his 
salary  by  so  doing.  I  will  stand  by  you  till  the 
last  hour  in  the  day;  you  are  in  a  fight  for  the 
people  and  for  God,  and  I  belong  in  it  and  am 
proud  to  have  such  a  leader.  Our  church  will 
stand  by  you,  too.  In  my  sermon  yesterday  morn- 
ing I  asked  all  good  people  to  sustain  you  in  this 
crusade  against  the  Sunday  saloon." 

The  Commissioner  said:  "I  saw  what  you  said 
in  your  pulpit  in  the  report  of  this  morning's 
papers,  and  thank  you  very  much." 

I  continued:  "I  am  only  one,  and  an  humble 
one  at  that,  but  you  may  count  on  me  to  stand 
with  you  on  the  front  of  the  firing-line.  When- 
ever you  shoot  your  big  gun  down  here  in  Mul- 
berry street  just  listen  and  you  will  hear  its  echo 
in  the  crack  of  a  little  fine-bored  pistol  on  the 
corner  of  Park  Avenue  and  Eighty-sixth  Street, 
and  that  little  pistol  will  be  in  my  hand  and  I  will 
be  shooting  at  the  thing  at  which  you  aim.1' 

He  said  enthusiastically,  "You're  the  stuff!     I 


196     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

am  looking  for  you  as  much  as  you  are  looking 
for  me;"  and,  taking  my  hand  warmly,  he  added, 
"I  will  stand  with  you  in  the  fight  till  the  end." 
Then  he  continued:  uDo  you  know  that  you  are 
the  first  man  whose  opinion  I  count  of  any  value 
who  has  commended  my  action  in  closing  the  Sun- 
day saloons?  Do  you  see  those  letters  and  tele- 
grams on  that  table?  There  are  perhaps  fifty  of 
them.  Every  single  one  criticises  me ;  some  abuse 
me  bitterly.  These  are  some  of  the  quotations 
from  them:  "What  an  ass  you  are";  "You  are 
the  biggest  crank  and  fool  in  the  world";  "You 
have  wrecked  the  Republican  Party";  "You  have 
killed  yourself  politically,  you  will  never  be  heard 
from  again" ;  "You  are  the  deadest  political  duck 
that  ever  died  in  a  pond." 

"Commissioner  Roosevelt,"  I  assured  him,  "I 
do  not  believe  a  word  of  them.  For  every  enemy 
you  make  you  will  gain  ten  friends.  In  the  long 
run,  the  most  popular  thing  a  man  can  do  polit- 
ically is  to  do  the  right  thing  morally.  In  my 
opinion  you  are  not  dead,  but  have  just  begun  to 
live  politically." 

He  answered  with  considerable  feeling,  "I 
have  entered  this  fight  with  no  idea  of  making 
friends  or  fearing  enemies;  that  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  question.  It  is  simply  a  question  of 
duty.  That  law  is  on  the  statute  books  and  I 
have  taken  an  oath  to  enforce  it  with  the  rest," 
and  looking  up  he  continued,  "With  the  help  of 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  SALOON     197 

God  I  intend  to  do  so.  Whether  my  course  will 
bring  friends  or  foes,  promotion  or  relegation  to 
the  rear,  does  not  enter  an  instant  into  my  cal- 
culation. It  is  mine  only  to  do  present  duty  which 
is  plain  to  me." 

On  taking  his  hand  to  leave  I  said,  "In  your 
vision  of  righteousness  and  moral  courage  in  pur- 
suing it  you  show  stuff  of  which  I  think  a  good 
President  could  be  made.  I  should  like  to  vote 
for  you  for  that  office  some  day."  And  I  did! 

I  spoke  with  Commissioner  Roosevelt  in  halls 
and  other  public  places,  visited  the  ministers' 
meetings  and  used  the  press  to  arouse  a  militant 
spirit  among  church  members  and  good  citizens 
generally.  I  also  contributed  to  the  magazines 
in  the  support  of  the  Commissioner  in  his  war  on 
the  Sunday  saloon.  In  digging  amidst  the  rub- 
bish of  my  study  I  have  just  come  upon  a  copy 
of  the  "North  American  Review"  of  October, 
1895,  containing  an  article  by  myself  on  "The 
Saloon  and  the  Sabbath,"  backing  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
efforts. 

In  the  uAtlantic  Monthly"  for  September,  1897, 
Commissioner  Roosevelt  wrote  of  his  stormy  ex- 
perience as  the  head  of  the  Police  Department. 
In  the  article  he  thus  arraigns  the  liquor  traffic: 
"Any  man  who  studies  the  social  condition  of  the 
poor  knows  that  liquor  works  more  ruin  than  any 
other  one  cause.  The  liquor  business  does  not 
stand  on  the  same  footing  with  other  occupations. 


i98     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

It  always  tends  to  produce  criminality  in  the 
population  at  large  and  lawbreaking  among  the 
saloonkeepers  themselves. "  In  referring  to  the 
forces  that  opposed  him  in  closing  the  saloons 
on  Sunday  he  said:  "The  rich  brewers  and  liq- 
uor-sellers who  had  made  money  rapidly  by  vio- 
lating the  excise  law,  with  the  corrupt  connivance 
of  the  police,  raved  with  anger,  and  every  cor- 
rupt politician  and  newspaper  in  the  city  gave 
them  clamorous  assistance ;  but  the  poor  man  and, 
notably,  the  poor  man's  wife  and  children,  bene- 
fited very  greatly  by  what  we  did.  The  one  im- 
portant element  in  good  citizenship  in  our  country 
is  obedience  to  law.  This  we  gave." 

We  shall  never  forget  the  scene  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  fight,  when  the  frenzied  brewers, 
distillers,  saloonkeepers  and  their  hired  represen- 
tatives appeared  at  a  hearing  they  had  called  be- 
fore Mayor  Strong,  and  how  bitterly  they  de- 
nounced Mr.  Roosevelt  and  how  insolently  they 
demanded  a  change  in  his  policy.  They  said  it 
was  a  cosmopolitan  community,  that  the  Sunday 
closing  feature  of  the  law  had  never  been  ob- 
served, and  they  insisted  that  the  Mayor  require 
the  Commissioner  instantly  to  stop  his  insane 
policy  and  give  a  "liberal"  enforcement  of  the  ex- 
cise law. 

When  the  liquor  men  had  finished  their  say 
Commissioner  Roosevelt  made  his  reply.  I  shall 
never  forget  it.  I  was  standing  just  against  him 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  SALOON     199 

when  he  spoke.  He  said:  "Your  Honor,  these 
gentlemen  have  savagely  attacked  me  and  my 
policy  of  Sunday  closing,  and  they  have  demanded 
of  you  that  you  require  me  to  give  a  'liberal'  en- 
forcement of  the  excise  law."  With  vehemence 
and  biting  sarcasm  he  continued:  "These  men 
want  me  to  enforce  the  law  a  'little  bit,'  to  en- 
force it  a  little,  tiny  bit.  Your  Honor,  I  do  not 
know  how  to  do  such  a  thing  and  I  shall  not  be- 
gin to  learn  now.  I  did  not  take  an  oath  to  en- 
force the  law  a  little,  tiny  bit.  The  great  Empire 
State  did  not  put  that  law  on  the  statute  books 
to  be  enforced  a  tiny  bit,  and  so  long  as  I  am  at 
the  head  of  the  Police  Department  of  the  city  I 
shall  do  all  in  my  power  to  enforce  the  law  hon- 
estly and  fearlessly." 

The  terrible  assault  of  the  liquor  dealers  and 
others  of  great  influence  scared  Mayor  Strong 
almost  out  of  his  wits,  and  the  Commissioner  had 
to  brace  up  the  Mayor's  backbone  with  one  hand 
while  he  hammered  the  saloons  with  the  other. 

General  Francis  V.  Greene  has  this  to  say  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt's  administration  as  Police 
Commissioner:  "He  held  this  office  for  two  years, 
and  though  subjected  to  much  criticism  from  cer- 
tain quarters  for  enforcing  the  liquor  license  law, 
yet  it  can  be  said,  in  a  word,  that  during  his  admin- 
istration he  placed  the  department  on  a  thoroughly 
efficient  basis,  broke  up  the  system  of  blackmail 
which  had  hitherto  prevailed  in  the  department, 


200     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

and  gained  the  affectionate  admiration  of  the 
members  of  the  force  to  an  extent  which  has 
never  been  equaled  by  any  Police  Commissioner 
before  or  since." 

Since  Col.  Roosevelt's  time  the  Sunday  saloon 
has  continued  with  no  official  protest,  thriving 
fully  as  well  under  the  reform  administrations  of 
Low,  Gaynor,  and  Mitchel,  as  under  Tammany 
Hall,  in  defiance  of  the  laws  of  God  and  man.  It 
is  likely  that  it  will  not  be  six  years  till  there  will 
be  no  Sunday  saloon  in  New  York,  Chicago,  San 
Francisco,  or  any  other  city  or  town,  and  no 
saloon  on  any  other  day,  either. 

At  the  close  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  two  years'  ex- 
perience as  President  of  the  Police  Board,  Pres- 
ident McKinley,  on  taking  office  in  1897,  ap- 
pointed Mr.  Roosevelt  Assistant  Secretary  of  the 
Navy.  He  spent  nine  months  putting  the  ships 
in  good  shape  for  the  Spanish-American  War, 
and  then  determined  to  go  out  to  the  field  him- 
self. I  wrote  him  a  letter  suggesting  that  as  it 
was  to  be  largely  a  naval  contest  he  could  serve 
his  country  better  by  staying  in  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment. He  wrote  me  that  there  was  just  cause  for 
the  war;  that  he  had  helped  bring  it  on;  and  that 
he  intended  to  go  out  into  the  field  if  he  had  to 
leave  his  dead  body  there.  He,  with  his  Rough 
Riders,  after  Dewey,  was  the  most  significant  per- 
sonality of  the  war. 

He   returned  from  the   short  war  of  a   few 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  SALOON     201 

months,  just  before  the  meeting  of  the  Republican 
State  Convention  in  September,  1898,  and  his 
name  was  considered  a  possible  candidate  for  the 
nomination  for  Governor.  Taking  up  a  New 
York  paper  one  morning  I  noticed  that  Senator 
Platt  had  stated  that  Colonel  Roosevelt  would 
not  be  nominated,  but  that  Governor  Black  would 
be  renominated  for  a  second  term.  Senator  Platt 
was  the  "easy  boss,"  and  I  knew  that  unless  there 
was  a  change  in  the  situation  the  Colonel  would 
not  be  nominated. 

That  same  day  I  took  a  train  down  to  Man- 
hattan Beach  to  the  Oriental  Hotel  to  see  the 
Senator.  I  told  him  I  had  come  down  to  see  him 
about  the  nomination  of  Colonel  Roosevelt  for 
the  Governorship.  He  was  cold  on  the  subject 
and  discouraged  me. 

"What  are  your  objections  to  the  Colonel's 
candidacy?"  I  asked  him. 

"Well,  he  is  rash  and  impulsive,"  said  the 
Senator. 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "he  is  impulsive,  but  his  im- 
pulses are  good,  and  if  you  will  notice,  he  is  run- 
ning in  the  right  direction." 

"But  he  slops  over,"  the  Senator  continued. 

"Yes,  he  does,"  I  replied,  "because  there  is  so 
much  of  him  to  slop.  He  is  so  large  that  he 
often  fills  the  vessel  to  overflowing.  He  has  an 
overplus  of  vitality  and  manhood." 

The  Senator  said,   "He  made  such  a  dismal 


202     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

failure  in  the  administration  of  the  Police  Com- 
missionership  that  his  unwisdom  and  unpopular- 
ity, in  the  judgment  of  many,  take  him  out  of 
serious  consideration  for  the  nomination.  He  has 
provoked  the  violent  hostility  of  the  liquor  people 
of  the  State." 

"Senator,"  I  persisted,  "I  disagree  with  you 
entirely.  The  moral  heroism  he  manifested  in  his 
fight  against  the  Sunday  saloons  of  New  York 
will  be  an  asset  to  the  Republican  Party.  Remem- 
ber, there  are  a  good  many  people  in  the  State 
who  live  above  the  Harlem  and  who  have  no  love 
for,  nor  even  patience  with,  the  saloon  on  Sunday 
or  on  any  other  day,  and,  besides,  I  believe  the 
number  of  voters  in  New  York  City  who  are  un- 
friendly to  the  saloon  is  often  underestimated. 
Are  you  not  too  smart  a  man  and  leader  to  at- 
tempt to  compete  with  Tammany  Hall  for  the 
saloon  vote?  The  liquor  dealers  may  promise 
to  vote  for  your  ticket,  but  on  election  day  they 
will  vote  for  Tammany  Hall,  which  they  count 
a  friend  to  be  relied  upon.  You  can  run  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  and  win  without  the  saloon  vote. 
You  can  win  in  spite  of  it.  So  able  a  man  as 
David  Bennett  Hill — so  great  a  national  figure 
that,  backed  by  his  party  in  the  State,  he  surely 
would  have  received  the  nomination  for  the  Presi- 
dency on  the  Democratic  ticket  in  1892,  if  Cleve- 
land had  not  taken  it  from  him — made  the  fatal 
political  mistake  of  overestimating  the  saloon  vote 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  SALOON     203 

in  this  State,  and  was  driven  from  power  largely 
on  account  of  his  supposed  friendliness  to  the  sa- 
loon. When  he  ran  for  the  Governorship  in 
1894  it  was  reported  that  he  said  he  would  rather 
have  the  votes  of  the  saloonkeepers  than  of  the 
preachers.  Whether  he  ever  made  the  statement 
or  not,  it  was  so  generally  believed  that  the 
preachers  took  him  at  his  word  and  fought  him, 
and  the  church  people  of  both  parties  turned 
against  him  and  beat  him  by  more  than  100,000 
votes.  On  account  of  that  mistake  you  are  in 
Mr.  Hill's  place  in  the  United  States  Senate  and 
have  displaced  him  as  the  dominant  political 
figure  of  the  State.  If  you  make  the  mistake  he 
did  and  punish  Roosevelt  for  having  fought  the 
Sunday  saloons  it  will  so  anger  the  church  people 
that  they  will  bury  your  ticket  under  an  avalanche 
of  150,000  majority;  you  will  step  down  and  out, 
and  Mr.  Hill  will  return  to  the  political  leader- 
ship of  the  State.  There  are  many  people  who 
are  not  total  abstainers  who  count  the  saloon  a 
bad  institution  and  will  knock  it  at  the  polls,  and 
many  more  who  resent  the  impertinence  and  im- 
piety of  the  Sunday  saloon  and  will  work  actively 
against  your  ticket.  I  have  always  voted  a  straight 
Republican  ticket;  but,  Senator,  if  you  depose 
Colonel  Roosevelt  for  having  done  his  sworn  duty 
as  Police  Commissioner  I  will  bolt  the  ticket  this 
fall,  and  you  will  find  my  ballot  in  that  avalanche 
of  votes.  I  never  made  a  political  speech  in  my 


204     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

life,  and  yet  if  you  turn  down  Roosevelt  because 
you  fear  the  saloon  power  will  beat  him,  I  will 
take  the  stump  and  make  a  score,  or  if  need  be 
fifty,  speeches  from  here  to  Buffalo  between  now 
and  election  day  and  tell  the  people  how  it  hap- 
pened, and  ask  them  what  they  think  of  it.  There 
is  especial  reason  for  caution  this  fall.  You  will 
be  handicapped  by  the  fact  that  this  is  an  'off' 
year,  not  a  Presidential  one,  and  by  the  severe 
criticism  on  the  Republican  policy  for  its  adminis- 
tration of  the  canals  of  the  State;  and  you  will 
need  Roosevelt's  physical,  mental  and  moral  en- 
thusiasm to  pull  your  ticket  through.'' 

It  had  gotten  to  be  5  :3O  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, and  I  bade  the  Senator  good-by  and  walked 
over  a  short  distance  to  take  a  train  for  home. 
Who  should  get  off  the  train  I  was  to  take  but 
B.  B.  Odell,  Jr.,  Chairman  of  the  Republican 
State  Committee,  Joseph  Dickey,  Mr.  Bain  and 
others  of  Newburgh,  my  personal  friends.  Mr. 
Odell  said:  "Hello,  what  are  you  doing  down 
here?'1 

"I  came  down  to  see  Senator  Platt,"  I  replied, 
"to  try  to  persuade  him  to  nominate  Colonel 
Roosevelt  for  the  Governorship.  I  saw  in  the 
paper  this  morning  that  he  had  told  you  boys  last 
night  that  the  Colonel  would  not  be  nominated." 

Mr.  Odell  said,  "I  am  glad  you  came  down.  I 
am  for  Roosevelt  myself  and  so  are  my  friends 
here.  I  think  he  is  the  logical  candidate  as  a  war 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  SALOON     205 

hero  and  reformer,  and  would  poll  a  heavy  vote 
and  be  elected.  The  Senator  has  faith  in  your 
judgment,  thinks  that  you  reflect  the  moral  senti- 
ment of  the  State  pretty  accurately;  I  wish  you 
would  stay  down  and  have  another  interview  with 
Mr.  Platt  Suppose  you  go  back  to  the  hotel  and 
have  dinner  with  me  and  see  him  again  tonight." 

I  went  back  and  sat  down  as  a  guest  at  his 
table.  After  dinner  I  had  another  talk  with  the 
Senator,  in  which  I  said:  uSenator,  do  not  think 
for  a  moment  that  Colonel  Roosevelt  sent  me 
down  to  see  you  in  the  interest  of  his  nomination. 
He  does  not  know  I  am  here.  I  have  never 
spoken  to  him  on  the  subject.  While  I  have  cor- 
responded with  him  ever  since  he  was  Police  Com- 
missioner,  even  since  he  came  back  to  Montauk 
Point  to  be  mustered  out,  the  matter  of  the  Gov- 
ernorship has  never  been  mentioned  by  either.  I 
am  here  because  I  have  seen  Theodore  Roosevelt 
at  close  range  for  two  years  and  know  him  to 
be  a  man  of  great  ability  and  all-daring  moral 
courage,  and  believe  that  as  a  leader  his  adminis- 
tration would  work  for  righteousness." 

I  went  home  thoroughly  discouraged,  the  Sena- 
tor was  so  cold  and  keen  in  answering  my  argu- 
ments and  unresponsive  to  my  warm  appeals.  Be- 
fore going  to  bed  I  sat  down  and  wrote  a  letter 
to  the  Colonel  at  Montauk  Point,  in  which  among 
other  things  I  said:  "I  had  thought  the  Repub- 
lican leaders  would  have  had  wisdom  enough  to 


206     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

offer  you  the  nomination  for  the  Governorship, 
but  in  a  morning  paper  I  saw  that  Senator  Platt 
had  said  you  would  not  be  the  candidate.  I  knew 
that  settled  the  matter,  if  that  opinion  continued. 
So,  without  your  advice  or  consent,  I  hurried 
down  to  the  Oriental  at  Manhattan  Beach  today 
and  have  had  two  long,  earnest  interviews  with 
the  Senator,  in  which  I  tried  to  convince  him  of 
the  wisdom  of  your  nomination.  But  I  feel  dis- 
couraged. I  fear  I  have  made  no  impression  on 
him  whatever.  Whenever  I  would  come  around 
to  the  plea  that  he  be  friendly  to  your  nomina- 
tion, a  Sphinx  is  eloquent  compared  to  the  sudden 
silence  of  his  lips.  Unless  he  shall  change  his 
mind  I  fear  your  nomination  will  be  impossible." 
The  Colonel  was  nominated.  I  never  knew  I 
had  made  the  least  impression  till  some  time  after 
the  Convention,  when  one  of  the  men  with  whom 
I  went  back  to  the  hotel  for  dinner,  the  day  of 
the  interviews,  told  me  that  when  I  left  that  night 
the  Senator  called  the  group  of  State  leaders  who 
were  stopping  at  the  hotel  and  said  that  he  had 
told  them  the  night  before  that  Governor  Black 
would  have  to  be  renominated  or  there  would  be 
a  split  in  the  Republican  Party.  But  Doctor 
"Inglehart"  (he  always  put  an  "n"  in  my  name) 
had  been  down  to  see  him  and  had  given  him  four 
reasons  why  Colonel  Roosevelt  should  be  nom- 
inated, three  of  which  he  considered  valid.  On 
the  strength  of  them  had  concluded  to  reverse 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  SALOON     207 

his  opinion  and  favor  Mr.  Roosevelt's  nomina- 
tion. The  gentlemen  said  from  that  moment  that 
Roosevelt  was  as  good  as  nominated.  Chairman 
Odell  worked  loyally  and  successfully  with  the 
Colonel,  who  was  elected  by  about  twenty  thous- 
and majority. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  was  made  Governor,  and 
consequently  Vice-President  and  President,  be- 
cause he  closed  the  saloons  of  New  York  on  Sun- 
day. He  would  have  doubtless  become  President 
later  by  another  route,  but  it  was  the  plan  of 
Providence  to  lead  him  through  this  gateway  of 
moral  heroism  to  the  White  House. 

In  my  interview  with  Senator  Platt  I  made  the 
moral  element  in  his  availability  paramount  and 
insisted  that  while  he  would  run  well  as  a  war 
hero,  he  would  run  still  better  as  a  moral  hero. 
It  was  because,  scorned  by  the  Democrats,  ridi- 
culed by  the  Republicans,  hissed  at  by  hell,  he  put 
his  giant  hands  against  eight  thousand  saloons 
and  shut  them,  in  spite  of  hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars  back  of  the  brewers  and  the  distillers  and 
the  enormous  vote  of  the  municipal  underworld. 

During  Mr.  Roosevelt's  candidacy  for  the  Pres- 
idency on  the  Progressive  ticket  he  made  some 
speeches  in  Ohio  at  the  time  the  wet  and  dry 
proposition  in  that  State  was  being  carried  on, 
and  in  several  of  his  speeches  he  said  that  the 
liquor  people  were  entirely  to  blame  for  pushing 
the  question  to  the  forefront  of  politics  at  that 


208     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

time,  and  that  if  he  were  living  in  the  State  he 
would  vote  for  Prohibition. 

Just  about  that  time  I  received  a  telegram  from 
my  personal  friend,  Mr.  J.  Frank  Burke,  Superin- 
tendent of  the  Oregon  State  Anti-Saloon  League, 
dated  March  15,  1912,  stating  that  on  the  plat- 
form and  in  the  press  it  was  charged  that  Colonel 
Roosevelt  was  on  his  way  rapidly  to  a  drunkard's 
grave  and  a  drunkard's  hell  and  asked  me  as  the 
Colonel's  friend  to  wire  a  denial  of  the  slander- 
ous statements  to  be  used  at  a  political  meeting 
to  be  held  in  Portland  that  same  night. 

I  immediately  sent  this  telegram  in  reply: 

Statement  diabolical  falsehood.  Roosevelt  never  claimed 
total  abstainer.  Drinks  almost  nothing.  No  alcohol  in 
eye  or  muscle.  Not  a  spot  on  him,  body,  mind  or  soul. 
The  bloom  of  best  American  civilization.  Idol  of  people. 
Christly  McKinley  suffered  same  villainous  slander  from 
same  source.  Hell  is  not  far  from  lying  scandalmonger. 

Though  corresponding  with  the  Colonel  regu- 
larly, I  did  not  say  anything  to  him  about  this 
telegram  or  my  answer  at  the  time.  I  felt  a  little 
delicacy  in  doing  so,  as  the  slander  was  so  foul 
and  false  that  I  did  not  care  to  irritate  him  with 
it,  but  in  a  letter  of  mine  to  him  of  May  1 1,  1912, 
I  gave  him  the  text  of  the  telegram  received  and 
of  the  one  I  sent  in  reply.  His  answer  was  the 
following : 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  SALOON     209 

EN  ROUTE  PULLMAN  PRIVATE  CAR  OCEANIC, 

MAY  14,  1912. 
MY  DEAR  FRIEND: 

You  are  a  trump!  I  am  very  glad  you  sent  precisely 
that  telegram.  You  are  absolutely  correct.  I  have  never 
claimed  to  be  a  total  abstainer,  but  I  drink  as  little  as 
most  total  abstainers,  for  I  really  doubt  whether  on  an 
average,  year  in  and  year  out,  I  drink  more  than  is  given 
for  medicinal  purposes  to  many  people.  I  never  touch 
whisky,  and  I  have  never  drunk  a  cocktail  or  a  highball 
in  my  life.  I  doubt  whether  I  have  drunk  a  dozen  tea- 
spoonfuls  of  brandy  since  I  came  back  from  Africa,  and 
as  far  as  I  now  recollect,  in  each  case  it  was  for  medicinal 
purposes.  In  Africa  during  the  eleven  months  I  drank 
exactly  seven  ounces  of  brandy;  this  was  under  our  doc- 
tor's direction  in  my  first  fever  attack,  and  once  when  I 
was  completely  exhausted.  My  experience  on  these  two 
occasions  convinced  me  that  tea  was  better  than  brandy, 
and  during  the  last  six  months  in  Africa  I  took  no  brandy, 
even  when  sick,  taking  tea  instead.  I  drink  just  about 
as  much  as  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott — and  I  say  this  with  his 
permission. 

Faithfully  yours, 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  nursed  his  wrath  until  he 
could  nail  the  lie,  which  he  did  in  his  successful 
suit  againt  an  editor,  in  which  he  got  the  complete 
vindication  which  he  demanded  and  deserved.  On 
the  rendering  of  the  verdict  I  wired  the  Colonel : 
"Supremely  happy  at  victory  and  complete  vindi- 
cation. "  To  this  Mr.  Roosevelt  sent  the  follow- 


210     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

ing  response:  "Heartiest  thanks  for  your  tele- 
gram. Naturally  I  am  pleased  with  the  way 
things  went  in  the  libel  suit." 

Never  since  that  day  has  any  person  of  re- 
sponsibility dared  repeat  the  foul  slander,  and 
Theodore  Roosevelt  stands  as  a  superb  personal- 
ity against  the  iniquity  of  the  saloon  and  its  inti- 
mate partnership  with  corrupt  politics. 

On  January  4,  1917,  I  called  by  appointment 
on  Colonel  Roosevelt  at  his  office  with  the  "Met- 
ropolitan Magazine,"  and  said  to  him:  "I  am  writ- 
ing an  anti-alcohol  book,  and  I  have  come  to  ask 
you  to  give  me  a  little  something  from  your  pen 
which  I  may  put  bodily  as  a  gem  into  that  book." 

"Well,  on  what  phase  of  the  subject  do  you 
want  those  words?" 

"I  would  like  you  to  give  me  in  condensed  form 
your  views  against  the  saloon  as  you  have  so  often 
done  to  me  in  private  conversation,  and  especially 
on  the  collusion  of  corrupt  politics  with  the  sa- 
loon. Your  fight  in  New  York  City  was  tragic 
and  epoch-making,  and  you  might  make  that  the 
basis  of  what  you  say." 

He  called  his  stenographer  and  began: 

"Mv  DEAR  DOCTOR  IGLEHART:  It  has  been 
my  good  fortune  to  be  associated  with  you  ever 
since  the  days " 

I  halted  him  and  said:  "Colonel,  cut  out  the 
compliments  to  me  and  put  in  your  knowledge  of 
the  badness  of  the  saloons  and  of  their  partners, 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  SALOON     211 

the  rum  politicians."  He  waved  his  big  arm  to- 
ward me  and  said,  "Just  hold  on.  I  know  better 
what  I  want  to  say  than  you  do,"  and  continued 
to  the  stenographer : 

MY  DEAR  DOCTOR  IGLEHART:  It  has  been  my  good 
fortune  to  be  associated  with  you  ever  since  the  days 
when  I  was  President  of  the  Police  Commission  of  New 
York,  when  I  worked  hand  in  hand  with  you,  and  with 
the  Ministers'  Association  that  you  represented  on  behalf 
of  temperance,  and  of  doing  away  with  the  evil  of  the 
saloon  power  in  New  York  City.  At  that  time  our  fight 
was  for  a  proper  observance  of  the  Sunday  law.  There 
could  have  have  been  no  more  practical  illustration  of 
the  hideous  evil  wrought  by  the  liquor  traffic  than  was 
afforded  by  the  results  of  its  stoppage  for  the  few  Sun- 
days during  which  we  were  able  to  keep  the  saloons  ab- 
solutely closed.  During  this  period  the  usual  mass  of 
individuals  up  in  the  courts  on  Monday  morning,  on 
charges  of  being  drunk  and  disorderly  and  committing 
assaults,  diminshed  by  two-thirds  or  over.  The  hospitals, 
such  as  Bellevue,  showed  a  similar  diminution  of  persons 
brought  to  them  because  of  alcoholism  and  crimes  due  to 
drunkenness.  On  the  other  hand,  the  healthy  Sunday  re- 
sorts in  the  neighborhood  of  New  York  showed  a  great 
increase  in  business.  Men  who  would  otherwise  have 
stayed  in  New  York  drinking,  while  their  wives  and 
children  suffered  in  the  heated  tenement  houses,  took 
these  same  wives  and  children  for  a  Sunday  holiday  in 
the  country.  Unfortunately,  by  the  end  of  that  time,  the 
decisions  of  the  courts  and  juries  had  so  hampered  our 
action  that,  to  a  very  large  extent,  the  old  system  was 


212     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

reinstated.  While  this  was  partly  because  public  opinion 
had  not  been  educated  to  sustain  us,  it  was  partly  because 
of  the  alliance  between  the  saloon  power  and  the  politi- 
cians. Any  man  who  fails  to  take  into  account  both  of 
these  facts  is  blinding  himself  to  two  of  the  prime  fac- 
tors in  the  misgovernment  of  our  citizens  and  in  the  misery 
of  our  city  populations.  If  you  care  to  know  my  views 
more  fully,  as  written  at  the  time,  I  refer  you  to  my 
chapter  on  the  subject  printed  in  a  book  called  "Ameri- 
can Ideals."  The  only  change  I  have  since  to  record  is  a 
constantly  growing  appreciation  of  the  wide-reaching  evil 
of  the  liquor  traffic,  and  of  the  need  of  extending,  by 
every  method  possible  through  our  country,  a  full  under- 
standing of  what  this  evil  is. 

Sincerely  yours, 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

In  "American  Ideals,"  to  which  Colonel  Roose- 
velt referred  me,  I  find  this  reference  to  criminals 
who  were  office  holders,  and  political  leaders. 
There  was  one  case  of  an  assemblyman  who 
served  several  terms  in  the  Legislature,  while  his 
private  business  was  to  carry  on  corrupt  negotia- 
tions between  the  Excise  Commissioners  and  own- 
ers of  low  haunts  who  wished  licenses.  The  pres- 
ident of  a  powerful  semi-political  association  was 
by  profession  a  burglar,  while  the  man  who  re- 
ceived the  goods  he  stole  was  an  alderman.  An- 
other alderman  was  elected  while  his  hair  was 
still  short  from  a  term  in  State  Prison.  A  school 
trustee  had  been  convicted  of  embezzlement  and 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  SALOON    213 

was  the  associate  of  criminals.  A  prominent  offi- 
cial in  the  Police  Department  was  interested  in 
disreputable  houses  and  gambling  saloons  and 
was  backed  politically  by  their  proprietors. 

In  urging  National  Prohibition  as  a  war  meas- 
ure, Colonel  Roosevelt  said: 

When  we  are  threatened  with  a  shortage  of  foodstuffs, 
when  it  is  our  duty  to  supply  food  to  our  allies  to  our 
utmost  ability,  we  should  see  that  needed  food  necessities 
are  not  diverted  from  their  proper  use.  Most  of  the 
belligerent  nations  of  Europe  have  taken  up  this  problem 
and  settled  it.  Let  us  begin  at  once  to  see  to  it  that  our 
grain  is  kept  for  food  and  not  put  into  alcoholic  beverages. 

I  sent  Colonel  Roosevelt  a  copy  of  the  first 
edition  of  this  book  and  received  from  him  the 
following  letter: 

uMv  DEAR  DR.  IGLEHART:  I  thank  you  for  your 
book  and  appreciate  your  sending  it  to  me  and  I  wish  to 
congratulate  you  on  what  has  happened  in  Congress  and 
the  success  that  is  crowning  your  long  fight  against  alco- 
holism. The  American  saloon  has  been  one  of  the  most 
mischievous  elements  in  American  social,  political  and  in- 
dustrial life.  No  man  has  warred  more  valiantly  against 
it  than  you  have,  and  I  am  glad  that  it  has  been  my 
privilege  to  stand  with  you  in  the  contest. 
Faithfully  yours, 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT." 

This  letter  was  dated  December  19,  1917.  On 
December  17,  1917,  only  two  days  before,  the 
House  passed  the  National  Prohibition  resolu- 
tion, and  on  the  day  following  the  Senate  adopted 
the  amended  measure.  This  is  the  Congressional 
action  to  which  the  Colonel  refers  in  this  letter 
written  the  day  after  that  action  had  been  taken. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON 

WITHIN  eight  years,  from  1907  to  1915, 
nine   of   the   Southern   States    rebelled 
against  the  authority  of  King  Alcohol. 
By  the  action  of  their  legislatures  and  the  people's 
ballots  they  declared  their  independence  of  his 
despotism  in  a  voice  that  stirred  the  nation  and 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  world. 

GEORGIA 

Georgia  was  the  first  of  the  Southern  States  to 
abolish  the  saloon,  by  the  passage  of  a  law  in 
July,  1907.  For  forty  years  good  men  and  wo- 
men had  been  planting  the  seeds  of  hostility  to 
drink  that  came  to  the  harvest  that  day.  Georgia 
not  only  achieved  the  first  victory  in  the  modern 
anti-drink  crusade,  but  gave  to  the  movement  one 
of  her  most  gifted  sons  to  be  perhaps  the  most 
conspicuous  and  potential  leader  in  stirring  the 
solid  South  into  the  banishment  of  alcohol.  It 
was  Sam  Jones,  a  minister  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  South,  who  spent  twenty  years  as 
a  traveling  evangelist  in  the  South  and  other  parts 

214 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      215 

of  the  country.  He  was  as  noble  in  his  character 
as  he  was  keen  in  his  intellect,  eloquent  as  an  ora- 
tor and  powerful  as  a  preacher.  His  biting  sar- 
casm and  terrific  invective  made  the  cold  chills 
run  up  and  down  the  back;  his  inimitable  wit  and 
humor  convulsed  his  audiences  with  laughter, 
while  his  pathos  melted  them  into  tears.  He 
was  called  on  to  speak  almost  everywhere,  on  all 
occasions,  and  was  always  the  able,  fearless,  per- 
sistent and  inveterate  enemy  of  the  liquor  traffic. 
He  spoke  in  a  village  of  twelve  hundred  people 
one  night,  and  said : 

"You  have  a  nice  village,  with  lovely  residences 
and  grounds  and  gardens;  you  have  good  streets 
and  stores  and  public  buildings ;  but  you  could  not 
get  along  without  three  saloons  to  damn  your 
boys.  What  license  do  they  pay?" 

One  spoke  up:  "A  hundred  dollars  a  piece." 
Jones  continued:  "The  three  would  make  three 
hundred  dollars.  You  have  twelve  hundred  in- 
habitants. If  you  were  each  to  walk  up  to  the 
treasurer  and  pay  forty  cents  you  would  have 
your  revenue  and  no  saloon.  What  does  a  hog 
bring  in  this  neighborhood?" 

A  man  called  out,  "Twelve  dollars." 
"That  is  about  what  I  thought,"  said  Jones. 
"Hogs  worth  twelve  dollars,  folks  forty  cents  a 
head,  around  here.  You  have  sold  your  boys  and 
girls  to  hell  and  yourselves  to  the  devil  for  forty 
cents  a  head;  and  as  far  as  you  are  concerned  the 


216     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

devil  has  got  the  worst  of  the  bargain,  for  those 
of  you  who  would  sell  your  sons  and  daughters  to 
damnation  for  forty  cents  each  are  not  worth  five 
cents  a  head.  And  when  at  the  last  day  the  over- 
throw of  your  children  will  be  charged  on  you 
and  you  are  called  upon  to  answer  what  you  sold 
your  boys  and  girls  to  hell  for,  look  the  Judge  in 
the  face  and  tell  Him  the  truth:  'For  forty 
cents.'  " 

For  twenty  years  Sam  Jones  went  up  and  down 
the  Southland,  hammering  with  his  merciless  logic 
into  the  minds  of  the  people,  and  burning  with  a 
divine  flame  into  their  hearts,  the  great  fact  that 
no  money  consideration  in  the  form  of  a  license 
fee  can  weigh  for  an  instant  in  the  balance  against 
the  bodies,  minds  and  souls  of  the  precious  boys 
and  girls.  The  people  of  the  South  believed  what 
he  said  and  acted  accordingly  in  saving  the  boys 
and  girls,  the  men  and  women,  and  scorning  the 
license  fee. 

Such  is  the  seed  sowed  broadcast  which  appears 
in  the  white  harvest  of  today;  it  is  the  dynamite 
that  charged  the  mines  that  wrecked  the  saloons 
of  the  South.  The  method  of  saloon  elimination 
he  preached,  he  practised.  He  drove  the  saloon 
out  of  his  home  town  of  Cartersville,  in  the 
county  of  Bartow,  and  for  fifteen  years  compelled 
a  rigid  enforcement  of  the  law  there.  But  one 
night  in  October,  1906,  he  died  of  heart  failure 
on  a  railway  train  in  Arkansas.  His  funeral  was 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      217 

a  State  event  in  Georgia.  But  the  liquor  people 
of  Bartow,  his  home  county,  were  jubilant  at  the 
thought  of  a  return  to  license,  with  their  greatest 
enemy  out  of  the  way,  and  early  in  June  called  a 
new  election.  The  temperance  people  were  in 
consternation  at  first  without  their  great  leader, 
but  they  organized,  prayed  in  the  churches, 
paraded  the  streets  and  made  a  hand-to-hand 
campaign.  When  the  ballots  were  counted  there 
were  eighty-five  votes  for  the  saloon  and  1,687 
for  no  license.  The  ghost  of  Sam  Jones  had 
come  back  to  Cartersville  to  lead  the  fight. 

The  marvelous  victory  in  Bartow  county  was 
the  torch  of  Prohibition  that  set  all  Georgia  on 
fire.  Lowndes  County,  a  rum  stronghold,  cast 
her  vote  resulting  in  1,684  f°r  Prohibition  to 
406  against  it.  The  legislature  was  in  its  sum- 
mer session.  Its  members  had  not  been  elected 
on  the  issue  of  State-wide  Prohibition.  But  the 
victories  of  Bartow  and  Lowndes  Counties  had 
set  the  whole  State  wild  with  temperance  enthu- 
siasm, and  the  Anti-Saloon  League,  Women's 
Christian  Temperance  Union,  Prohibitionists, 
Good  Templars  and  other  temperance  societies 
were  well  organized  and  united,  and,  seeing  that 
the  psychological  moment  had  come,  pressed  the 
measure.  The  Hardman-Covington  Bill  was 
backed  by  its  authors  and  by  Williford,  Knight, 
Neal,  and  Seaborn  Wright  championing  the  meas- 
ure. After  a  long  and  desperate  fight  in  which 


218     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Mrs.  Mary  H.  Armor  and  the  "Daily  Georgian" 
were  important  factors,  the  bill  was  passed  in  the 
Senate  by  34  to  7,  and  in  the  Hous£  by  139  to  39. 
A  scene  of  wildest  enthusiasm  followed.  Men 
and  women,  old  and  young,  sang  and  cried  and 
laughed  and  shouted  for  joy.  Above  all  was  the 
hymn  of  praise  to  God  for  victory. 

Though  the  adoption  of  Prohibition  by  the 
Legislature  was  sudden,  there  had  been  years  of 
preparation  for  it.  At  the  time  of  the  passage 
of  the  law  the  saloon  had  been  driven  by  local 
option  from  135  out  of  the  150  counties  of  the 
State.  The  law  went  into  effect  January  i,  1908. 

In  search  of  the  very  best  authority  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Prohibition  in  Georgia,  my  rnind  turned  to 
United  States  Senator  Hoke  Smith,  who  had  been 
a  successful  lawyer  in  Atlanta,  proprietor  of  the 
"Atlanta  Journal,"  a  member  of  President  Cleve- 
land's cabinet,  twice  elected  Governor  of  his  State, 
and  twice  United  States  Senator.  Senator  Smith 
delivered  a  speech  in  the  Senate,  January  9,  1917, 
on  the  District  of  Columbia  Prohibition  Bill, 
from  which  I  make  the  following  quotations, 
which  are  so  powerful  and  convincing  as  to  leave 
very  little  room  for  debate  on  the  subject: 

During  the  summer  of  1907  the  State  of  Georgia, 
which  I  represent  here  in  part,  adopted  State-wide  Pro- 
hibition. There  has  been  some  effort  to  criticize  the 
manner  in  which  the  law  is  enforced  in  Georgia.  I  do 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      219 

not  claim  that  it  is  completely  enforced  and  that  the  use 
of  intoxicating  drinks  has  been  entirely  suppressed  in 
Georgia.  But,  having  approved  that  law  as  Governor  of 
the  State,  I  watched  the  effect  of  it  in  the  city  of  Atlanta, 
my  home  and  the  largest  city  in  the  State.  I  can  say 
that  in  many  an  humble  home  after  its  passage,  and  even 
with  partial  enforcement,  there  was  more  food  and  better 
clothing  for  the  women  and  children,  and  in  many  a 
home  there  was  gentleness  and  kindness  instead  of  coarse- 
ness and  brutality  from  an  intoxicated  husband  and 
father. 

I  have  the  report  of  the  chief  of  police  of  the  city  of 
Atlanta,  a  city  of  more  than  225,000  inhabitants.  He 
gives  the  relative  effect  of  the  open  barroom  in  the  city 
of  Atlanta  for  six  years  before  Prohibition  and  for  six 
years  afterward.  The  statistics  which  he  furnishes  show 
that  the  number  of  cases  made  for  intoxication  in  propor- 
tion to  the  population  was  about  one-half  in  the  city  after 
Prohibition,  as  compared  to  the  number  before,  and  that 
the  number  of  arrests  for  crime  was  at  least  one-third 
less  in  proportion  to  population  after  the  adoption  of 
Prohibition  than  before. 

My  own  observation  throughout  the  State  satisfies  me 
that  Prohibition  has  been  beneficial  and  helpful  to  the 
people  of  the  State.  I  was  a  local  optionist  before  the 
passage  of  the  law,  but  promised  in  my  campaign  for 
Governor  that  if  the  State  passed  State-wide  Prohibition 
I  would  approve  it.  Today  any  influence  I  might  have 
in  the  State  would  be  thrown  against  returning  to  local 
option  and  in  favor  of  the  maintenance  of  State-wide 
Prohibition.  I  would  pursue  this  course  as  the  result 
of  the  beneficial  effect,  in  my  judgment,  of  the  legislation. 


220     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Coming  to  the  economic  side  of  the  question,  1  am  sure 
that  the  general  business  of  the  city  of  Atlanta  has  pros- 
pered as  a  consequence  of  Prohibition;  that  the  legitimate 
business  of  the  city  has  largely  received  the  money  that 
was  before  wasted  on  liquors  in  the  saloons.  There  has 
been  a  rapid  accumulation  of  deposits  in  the  banks,  not, 
of  course,  entirely  due  to  this  subject,  but  in  part.  There 
has  been  an  improvement  in  the  business  of  the  general 
retail  stores  and  the  department  stores  of  the  city,  in  part, 
in  my  judgment,  due  to  Prohibition. 

We  have  one  city  in  Georgia  which  was  very  much 
opposed  to  Prohibition,  the  second  largest  city  in  the  State, 
and  for  a  long  time  the  enforcement  of  the  law  was  re- 
sisted there.  I  refer  to  the  city  of  Savannah;  but  within 
the  past  twelve  months  the  law  has  been  enforced  there; 
and  I  hold  in  my  hand  an  editorial  from  the  " Savannah 
Morning  News"  dealing  with  the  business  condition  of 
that  city  during  the  Christmas  holidays,  in  which  the 
editor  rejoices  that  the  merchants  have  done  the  best  busi- 
ness in  the  history  of  the  city.  The  editor,  though  never, 
I  believe,  a  prohibitionist,  further  attributes  at  least  a  part 
of  that  improved  business  to  the  fact  that  money  was 
going  into  legitimate  lines,  instead  of  being  wasted  for 
intoxicating  spirits. 

I  wish  to  see  barrooms  driven  from  the  District  of 
Columbia;  I  wish  to  see  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors 
for  beverage  purposes  stopped  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
I  believe  a  majority  of  the  Senate  is  in  favor  of  stopping 
it.  Here  come,  every  day  almost,  thousands  of  visitors, 
young  and  old,  to  all  of  whom  the  lessons  of  patriotism 
from  a  visit  to  the  Nation's  Capital  result  in  a  higher 
type  of  citizenship,  and  the  pride  of  participation  in  the 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      221 

affairs  of  our  Government  grows  stronger  with  the  real- 
ization of  its  latent  power  and  outward  dignity  and 
grandeur.  Let  me  stop  a  moment  to  say  that  as  they 
come  I  want  them  to  see  that  the  National  Congress  at 
the  National  Capital  has  closed  barrooms,  has  forbidden 
the  sale  of  liquor,  and  I  want  them  to  go  back  from  here 
with  the  inspiration  of  knowing  that  their  national  legisla- 
tors are  helping  them  in  the  fight  which,  pray  God,  will 
close  such  places  everywhere,  from  ocean  to  ocean,  and 
from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf.  I  wish  to  see  the  barrooms 
closed;  I  wish  to  see  the  sale  of  liquor  for  beverage 
purposes  stopped  here,  and  to  my  constituents  at  home  I 
hold  myself  responsible,  and  I  vote  what  I  believe  to  be 
their  wishes,  accepting  the  responsibility  myself  and  de- 
clining to  refer  it  to  anybody  else. 

Senator  Reed  of  Missouri  asked  Senator  Smith 
this  question:  "Are  not  the  citizens  of  the  Sena- 
tor's own  State  permitted  to  import  liquor  for 
their  own  use  under  the  laws  of  the  State  ?" 

Senator  Smith  answered: 

That  is  true.  The  bill  was  passed,  I  think,  under  a 
misapprehension  of  the  meaning  of  the  Webb  Act.  They 
were  of  the  opinion,  so  I  was  advised,  that  they  could  not 
absolutely  prohibit  it  and  remain  within  the  Constitu- 
tion; but  I  feel  perfectly  sure  that  this  summer  they  will 
stop  it.  At  least  I  hope  so.  In  other  words,  I  am  in 
f^vor  of  stopping  men  from  using  it,  not  simply  playing 
with  it.  I  want  to  say  that  to  the  Senator.  I  am  in 
favor  of  trying  to  make  our  State  bone-dry.  With  me 
opposition  to  the  use  of  spirituous  and  intoxicating  drink 


222     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

has  been  a  gradual  growth.  When  I  leave  myself  free 
to  think  about  it  and  realize  the  skeletons  found  in  almost 
every  home  as  a  result  of  its  use,  I  have  reached  the  place 
where  I  am  willing  in  my  State  this  next  summer  to  help 
make  it  absolutely  dry,  and  I  hope  the  people  of  the  State 
are  ready  to  give  up  entirely  the  use  of  intoxicating 
drinks. 

But  Georgia  could  not,  would  not,  wait  till  the 
summer,  but  went  dry  at  once,  only  a  few  weeks 
after  the  Senator  had  spoken. 

Governor  Nat.  E.  Harris  of  Georgia,  in  reply 
to  a  letter  of  inquiry  from  me,  has  written  me  the 
following  letter: 

I  am  in  sympathy  with  every  one  in  the  American 
Union  who  is  traveling  the  pathway  that  your  letter  in- 
dicates you  to  be  on.  In  my  State  I  am  thinking  of 
calling  a  session  of  the  Legislature  to  cut  off  the  monthly 
shipments  of  two  quarts  allowed  to  each  individual.  This 
has  been  our  Trojan  horse,  but  the  sentiment  here  is  so 
strongly  in  favor  of  a  "bone-dry"  program  that  there  will 
be  no  difficulty  in  changing  our  law  and  adjusting  our- 
selves to  the  present  trend  of  affairs.  It  looks  like  Pro- 
hibition is  going  over  the  world. 

Very  sincerely  and  fraternally  yours, 

N.  E.  HARRIS,  Governor. 

Precisely  this  thing  the  Governor  did.  He 
called  a  special  session  of  the  Legislature  to  pass 
a  bone-dry  law,  which  it  did,  and  then  adjourned 
and  went  home,  rejoicing  in  having  done  the  work 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      223 

of  a  generation  in  a  day.  Now  the  rich  man  in 
his  palatial  home  cannot  have  a  glass  of  cham- 
pagne, nor  the  negro  a  drop  of  his  alcohol  in  his 
river  street  joint. 

Why  need  we  multiply  witnesses?  Senator 
Smith  and  Governor  Harris  ought  to  know  as 
much  about  the  situation  in  Georgia  as  the  brew- 
ers, the  distillers,  the  saloonkeepers  and  their 
hired  mercenaries  in  the  editorial  sanctum,  in 
municipal  and  legislative  halls,  who  bellow  out 
their  loud  lament,  and  shed  their  crocodile  tears 
at  the  "failure  of  Prohibition  in  Georgia." 

OKLAHOMA 

Oklahoma  was  the  next  State  to  adopt  Pro- 
hibition. Congress,  in  the  enabling  act  of  1906, 
required  Prohibition  for  twenty-one  years  in  the 
Indian  Territory  section  of  the  new  State.  In 
the  election  of  delegates  to  the  constitutional  con- 
vention the  liquor  question  was  one  of  the  fore- 
most. Then  the  pressure  was  made  by  both  sides 
on  the  delegates  to  incorporate  or  leave  out  of 
the  constitution  a  prohibitory  provision.  The  con- 
vention prepared  a  constitutional  provision,  but 
made  it  necessary  for  the  people  at  the  polls  to 
determine  whether  they  would  make  it  a  part  of 
their  constitution  or  not.  [After  an  exceedingly 
excited  contest  the  prohibitory  provision  was 
adopted  at  the  election  in  November,  1907,  by  a 


224    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

majority  of  18,000.  And  thus  Oklahoma,  the 
youngest  of  Columbia's  fair  daughters,  entered 
the  sisterhood  of  States  adorned  with  garments 
unstained  by  wine  or  beer,  unfouled  by  the  fumes 
of  alcohol,  clad  in  the  pure  white  robe  of  Prohi- 
bition. The  following  fall  the  liquor  forces  sur- 
prised and  alarmed  the  temperance  people  by  a 
demand  for  a  new  vote  on  a  technicality,  but  the 
measure  for  the  repeal  of  the  Prohibition  amend- 
ment was  defeated,  November,  1910,  by  a  major- 
ity of  23,000  votes. 

The  legislature  of  1913  passed  severe  meas- 
ures of  law  enforcement.  It  included  a  peniten- 
tiary sentence  for  keeping  a  place  for  the  sale  of 
intoxicants,  made  a  felony  of  the  second  offense 
against  any  feature  of  the  prohibitory  law,  and 
rendered  amenable  to  impeachment  and  dismis- 
sal any  State  officer  charged  with  drunkenness  or 
the  excessive  use  of  intoxicants. 

A  young  physician  at  the  head  of  a  hospital 
in  one  of  the  cities  of  Oklahoma,  said  he  went  to 
that  State  a  few  years  ago  with  favorable  notions 
of  beer  and  with  a  positive  prejudice,  if  not  con- 
tempt, for  Prohibition  as  a  remedy  for  the  evils 
of  drink.  But  he  said  the  practical  working  of 
the  law  had  changed  his  mind  on  the  subject,  had 
entirely  converted  him.  He  said  that  the  drastic 
features  of  the  law,  even  sending  men  of  influence 
to  the  penitentiary  for  terms  long  enough  for  se- 
rious reflection  for  an  infraction  of  the  law,  had 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      225 

been  salutary  to  public  morals.  He  said  that  no 
one  acquainted  with  the  facts  would  deny  that 
Prohibition  in  Oklahoma  prohibits. 

ALABAMA 

The  wires  had  scarcely  carried  the  word  that 
President  Roosevelt  had  accepted  the  new  State  of 
Oklahoma,  with  its  prohibitory  amendment,  when 
the  Legislature  of  Alabama  passed  a  State  Pro- 
hibition law,  to  take  effect  on  January  i,  1908. 

The  original  excise  law  had  been  amended 
from  year  to  year,  allowing  privileges  of  local 
option  to  special  localities,  till  the  saloon  had  been 
driven  out  of  twenty  counties.  As  the  sessions  of 
the  Legislature  were  only  quadrennial,  the  anti-sa- 
loon people  determined  to  make  the  best  use  of 
their  opportunities  at  the  winter  session  of  1907  to 
press  radical  temperance  measures.  Laws  were 
passed  allowing  local  option  for  counties,  pre- 
venting the  shipment  of  liquors  from  wet  into 
dry  territory,  compelling  temperance  instruction 
in  the  public  schools,  and  forbidding  the  sale  of 
"hop-jack"  and  other  drinks  containing  a  smaller 
percentage  of  alcohol. 

In  November  of  the  same  year  Governor 
Comer  called  a  special  session  of  the  Legislature 
to  consider  the  differences  between  the  railroads 
and  the  State.  He  did  not  make  any  mention  of 
the  temperance  question  in  his  message,  as  he  did 
not  intend  that  it  should  be  considered  until  the 


226     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

regular  session,  three  years  thence.  Because  he 
did  not  make  mention  of  it  in  that  call  a  two- 
thirds  majority  was  required  to  carry  such  a 
measure.  When  the  members  arrived  at  Mont- 
gomery, they  were  blazing  with  the  enthusiasm 
that  had  fired  the  law-makers  of  Georgia,  and 
they  would  not  give  a  single  thought  to  railroads 
till  they  had  "expressed"  the  saloon  out  of  the 
State  by  the  adoption  in  the  Senate  of  the  House 
Bill  prohibiting  the  manufacture  and  sale  of 
liquors  as  a  beverage  by  a  vote  of  32  to  2. 

Soon  after  the  passage  of  the  measure  Gov- 
ernor Comer,  coming  out  of  his  executive  cham- 
ber, said  to  a  friend,  uDid  you  see  that  woman 
go  out  of  the  door  just  then?" 

"Yes." 

"Hers  was  a  pathetic  mission.  She  came  to 
ask  me  to  pardon  her  husband  for  having  killed 
her  brother.  Both  were  honest  men,  good  work- 
men, personal  friends.  They  got  to  drinking  one 
night  till  they  were  drunk,  got  into  a  fight  over 
nothing,  and  her  husband  killed  her  brother,  and 
was  sent  to  prison  for  life,  and  she  and  her  chil- 
dren are  destitute,  and  she  has  come  crying  to  me 
for  a  pardon.  There  are  many  widows  and  or- 
phans down  in  the  wiregrass  of  Alabama,  caused 
by  strong  drink,  and  we  expect  the  new  prohibi- 
tory law  to  greatly  lessen  the  number  of  such 
tragedies." 

The  passage  of  the  Prohibition  law  was  fol- 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      227 

lowed  instantly  by  a  fierce  reaction.  The  officers 
of  the  law  in  the  cities  were  not  in  sympathy  with 
it;  the  compactly  organized  liquor-dealers  exerted 
their  powerful  influence  in  politics  to  discredit  it; 
they  sowed  the  State  with  blind  tigers,  and  then 
made  many  temperance  people  believe  it  was  the 
law  that  was  responsible  for  them,  instead  of 
themselves  who  had  created  them  by  breaking  the 
law.  Amidst  this  riot  of  nullification  a  special 
session  of  the  Legislature  in  August,  1908,  sub- 
mitted the  question  of  a  Prohibition  amendment 
to  the  constitution,  to  be  voted  upon  Novem- 
ber 29.  The  amendment  was  lost  by  a  large  major- 
ity. The  church  people  innocently  believed  the 
statement  of  their  enemies  before  the  election  that 
the  State  Prohibition  law  would  be  sufficient  and 
would  not  be  touched.  But  immediately  the 
liquor  men  put  into  power  officers  of  State,  in- 
cluding the  Governor,  who  did  their  best  to  undo 
the  statutory  law.  The  anti-saloon  leaders,  the 
day  after  the  election  on  the  amendment,  claimed 
that  the  defeat  was  only  temporary,  and  with  wis- 
dom, courage  and  hope  continued  a  relentless 
warfare  till  they  elected  a  friendly  legislature 
and  passed  a  State-v/ide  Prohibition  law  in  Jan- 
uary, 1915,  which  was  vetoed  by  the  Governor 
and  promptly  passed  over  his  veto,  and  went  into 
effect  July  i,  1915.  As  deep  as  was  the  humilia- 
tion and  disappointment  of  the  no-license  workers 
of  the  State  and  Nation  at  the  defeat  of  the  con- 


228     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

stitutional  amendment,  so  high  was  their  enjoy- 
ment that  after  seven  years  of  the  baleful  rule 
of  rum  Alabama  had  returned  to  the  ranks  of 
Prohibition. 

MISSISSIPPI 

Mississippi  has  always  been  good  ground  for 
Prohibition  seed.  Its  citizens  are  mostly  farmers. 
Of  the  1,797,114  inhabitants  of  the  State  1,585,- 
802  live  in  the  country;  only  207,311  dwell  in  the 
cities*  Meridian  is  the  largest  city;  has  less  than 
24,000;  Jackson  about  22,000;  and  Vicksburg  21,- 
ooo,  with  Natchez  and  Hattiesburg  coming  next 
with  less  than  12,000,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  cities 
under  9,000  in  population.  Difficulties,  however, 
confronted  the  temperance  people.  The  colored 
people  have,  from  the  close  of  the  Civil  War 
until  now,  outnumbered  the  whites,  and  the  rela- 
tion of  the  negro  to  the  saloon  became  a  serious 
problem  to  be  solved.  The  problem  became  acute 
in  wet  districts  like  Aberdeen  in  Monroe  County, 
center  for  a  cotton-planting  country,  which  has 
18,000  blacks  to  12,000  whites,  and  in  Leland  in 
Washington,  where  the  blacks  outnumber  the 
whites  nine  to  one.  The  country  saloon  was 
spoiling  the  negro  and  the  white  man  as  well, 
and  instead  of  a  three  mile  limit,  as  in  Alabama, 
the  people  pushed  the  saloon  five  miles  away 
from  a  church  or  school,  which  cleared  the  farm 
districts  of  the  cross-roads  groggery. 

When  the  public  sentiment  of  this  rural  State 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      229 

against  the  saloon  was  crystallizing  into  restric- 
tive legislation  there  appeared  on  the  stage  one 
of  the  most  powerful  enemies  the  liquor  traffic 
ever  had  in  Mississippi  or  in  any  other  State,  who 
became  the  brains,  the  heart,  the  powerful  right 
arm  of  the  Prohibition  forces.  He  was  the  Rev. 
Charles  B.  Galloway,  a  young  Bishop  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South.  He  was  six 
feet  high,  every  inch  a  Southern  gentleman,  a  fine 
writer,  an  able  speaker,  a  brave,  manly  man.  He 
had  an  intense  interest  in  the  spiritual  welfare  of 
the  church,  and  also  a  genius  for  taking  the  prin- 
ciples of  his  religion  into  the  affairs  of  everyday 
life,  including  the  field  of  politics.  For  a  whole 
generation  he  fought  like  a  hero  against  the  rum 
traffic.  With  rare  prophetic  vision  he  saw  the 
solution  of  the  saloon  problem  in  Mississippi  and 
for  the  whole  nation.  Long  before  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League  was  dreamed  of  he  adopted  the 
identical  methods  which  have  become  so  powerful 
in  the  hands  of  that  organization  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  liquor  traffic.  He  claimed  the  saloon 
had  to  be  voted  out,  and  devoted  himself  to  prac- 
tical politics  for  that  purpose.  He  held  that  the 
voting  ought  to  be  done  in  small  units  at  first, 
and  increased  to  larger  ones  as  fast  as  public  senti- 
ment would  sustain  it,  working  all  the  while  to 
educate  and  create  that  friendly  sentiment.  The 
radicals  insisted  that  he  went  too  slow,  and  the 
conservatives  that  he  went  too  fast.  But  with  one 


230     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

hand  he  held  the  radicals  back,  and  with  the 
other  he  pulled  the  conservatives  forward,  and 
allowed  the  movement  to  go  only  as  fast  as  public 
sentiment  would  sustain  it.  His  notion  was  that 
local  option  by  counties  as  a  unit  would  pretty 
nearly  clean  the  saloons  out  of  the  State,  and  he 
was  right.  After  using  the  township  option  law 
for  a  while  he  made  a  fierce  fight  before  the 
Legislature  of  1886  for  his  cherished  county  local 
option  law,  and  secured  it.  And  after  twenty-two 
years  of  hard  labor  and  wise  use  of  that  law  he 
saw  the  saloon  driven  from  sixty-nine  of  the 
seventy-six  counties,  which  included  ninety  per 
cent,  of  the  territory  of  the  State,  and,  according 
to  his  prophecy,  the  question  of  State-wide  Prohi- 
bition took  care  of  itself. 

It  became  almost  a  matter  of  form  only  for  the 
Legislature  of  1908  to  pass  a  State-wide  Prohibi- 
tion bill,  by  almost  unanimous  vote  of  both  houses. 
Bishop  Galloway  used  the  modern  methods  of  the 
Anti-Saloon  League  in  bringing  the  pressure  of 
the  church  upon  the  wet  and  dry  campaigns  and 
upon  the  sessions  of  the  Legislature.  The  Wom- 
en's Christian  Temperance  Union,  under  Miss 
Frances  Willard,  with  many  in  cooperation,  de- 
voted men  and  women,  did  much  to  arouse 
Mississippi  to  hostility  to  and  action  against  the 
saloon,  and  was  in  a  large  degree  responsible  for 
the  introduction  and  passage  of  the  State-wide 
Prohibition  bill  in  1908. 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      231 

Bishop  Galloway  attracted  attention  outside  of 
his  State  by  his  spirited  newspaper  controversy 
with  Jefferson  Davis,  who  had  attacked  Prohibi- 
tion as  a  political  theory.  "Jeff  Davis  prides  him- 
self on  having  always  the  last  word,"  said  Bishop 
Galloway,  mildly.  "Well,  I'm  a  somewhat  younger 
man  than  he  is,  and  I  propose  to  have  the  last 
word  in  this."  And  so  he  did.  And  it  was  almost 
his  last  word,  for  he  died  the  year  after  the  State- 
wide bill  was  passed,  the  one  in  which  it  went  into 
effect.  The  last  battle  fought,  the  last  word  said, 
the  hero  laid  down  his  sword  and  went  to  his 
reward. 

Governor  Bilbo  of  Mississippi  sent  me  a  letter 
telling  what  a  success  Prohibition  is  in  his  State, 
and  inclosing  a  copy  of  an  address  made  before 
a  Baptist  convention,  from  which  I  quote: 

Year  by  year  the  use  of  alcohol  is  being  gradualy 
abandoned  by  a  greater  number  of  our  people;  social 
usages  are  adjusting  themselves  to  the  new  gospel  of  total 
abstinence,  and  the  business  world  has  joined  with  society 
and  the  Church  in  putting  its  ban  upon  whisky-drinking. 
All  of  these  forces  and  influences  are  daily  growing 
stronger  and  stronger  in  support  of  our  Prohibition  laws. 
We  have  lost  no  ground;  every  year  adds  new  areas  to 
the  territory  conquered  to  Prohibition;  the  great  move- 
ment has  taken  no  backward  step ;  its  way  has  been  always 
and  unwaveringly  onward,  and  the  march  has  gathered 
greater  confidence  and  celerity  with  each  forward  step. 

But  the  best  fruits  of  our  battle  for  temperance  do  not 


232     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

lie  in  our  present  possession  and  enjoyment;  they  lie  in 
the  assurance  of  to-morrow.  Under  the  rule  of  the  saloon 
and  common  use  of  alcoholic  beverages,  habits  of  drinking 
were  readily  and  easily  formed,  which  led  to  intemperance 
and  its  multiplied  progeny  of  woe.  The  elimination  of 
the  saloon  under  Prohibition  removes  both  the  temptation 
and  the  opportunity  to  form  what  we  call  the  drinking 
habit;  while  the  abolishment  of  the  social  practice  and 
custom  of  wine-drinking  has  also  gone  to  restrict  the 
development  of  this  habit;  Prohibition  unquestionably  re- 
stricts and  must  ultimately  eliminate  the  habit  which 
produces  drunkenness.  Thus  the  new  generation  is  res- 
cued; the  young  are  protected  against  intemperance. 

NORTH  CAROLINA 

North  Carolina  went  dry  in  1909  by  a  majority 
of  over  40,000,  securing  constitutional  Prohibi- 
tion. The  Governor,  the  two  United  States  Sena- 
tors, the  members  of  Congress  and  other  leaders 
rolled  up  their  sleeves  and  drove  the  rum  traffic 
out.  Ex-Governor  Glenn  rendered  invaluable  ser- 
vice in  the  campaigns. 

I  sought  a  meeting  with  Congressman  Edwin 
Y.  Webb,  the  able  and  efficient  leader  of  the  Pro- 
hibition forces  in  the  lower  house,  for  informa- 
tion with  reference  to  Prohibition  in  his  State  and 
the  nation,  and  of  his  personal  relation  to  it.  He 
said: 

Prohibition  in  North  Carolina  has  been  a  great  suc- 
cess from  any  standpoint  from  which  it  might  be  viewed. 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      233 

Those  who  were  first  opposed  to  its  adoption  used  the 
approved  arguments  against  it.  Since  the  law  has  been 
tested,  its  effects  have  been  so  beneficial  that  a  proposition 
to  repeal  it  and  go  back  to  the  laws  in  force  prior  to  1909, 
would  not  receive  serious  consideration.  Capital  and 
property  which  had  been  previously  employed  in  the  liquor 
traffic,  soon  found  investment  and  were  employed  in  other 
business  that  has  aided  the  State  in  its  great  commercial 
progress,  and  the  men  previously  employed  in  the  traffic 
have  turned  their  efforts  to  help  develop  the  natural  re- 
sources of  the  State.  The  State  felt  no  crippling  shock 
from  the  loss  of  taxes,  which  were  quickly  compensated 
for  by  greater  commercial  advancement  and  a  more  healthy, 
prosperous,  and  contented  people. 

TENNESSEE 

It  was  according  to  the  eternal  fitness  of  things 
that  the  schoolhouse  should  drive  the  saloon  out 
of  Tennessee,  as  they  represent  directly  opposite 
ideas:  one,  the  education  and  salvation  of  the 
young,  the  other  their  destruction.  It  is  generally 
admitted,  even  in  communities  with  a  weak  tem- 
perance sentiment,  that  drinking-places  should  be 
pushed  away  from  churches  and  schools,  anywhere 
from  a  hundred  feet  to  a  mile  or  more.  It  was 
the  law  keeping  a  dramshop  four  miles  away  from 
a  school  that  made  Tennessee  dry.  The  original 
law  was  passed  forty  years  ago,  and  for  this 
reason:  The  University  of  the  South,  under  the 
authority  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church, 


234    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

situated  at  Sewanee  in  the  Cumberland  Moun- 
tains, fearing  the  contamination  of  the  country 
saloon,  secured  from  the  Legislature  an  act  for- 
bidding the  sale  of  liquor  as  a  beverage  within 
four  miles  of  any  incorporated  institution  of  learn- 
ing, located  outside  of  an  incorporated  town.  Ten 
years  afterward,  the  clause,  "an  incorporated  in- 
stitution of  learning,"  was  cut  out  and  these  words 
substituted:  "any  schoolhouse,  public  or  private* 
where  a  school  is  kept."  This  change  at  one 
stroke  drove  the  dramshop  out  of  almost  all  the 
rural  districts  of  the  State.  In  1899  this  "Four 
Mile  Law"  was  made  to  apply  to  towns  of  two 
thousand  or  under;  in  1893,  as  the  Adams  Law, 
it  included  cities  of  five  thousand;  in  1907,  as  the 
Pendleton  Law,  it  applied  to  cities  of  150,000; 
and  in  1909,  as  the  Holladay  Bill,  doing  away 
with  the  charter  repeal  and  reincorporation  fea- 
tures and  making  it  universally  applicable,  the 
whole  State  was  made  dry.  The  law  did  not 
leave  a  single  spot  in  mountain  or  valley  in  the 
State  on  which  to  set  a  saloon,  that  would  not  be 
within  four  miles  of  a  schoolhouse.  If  there  had 
been  such  a  spot  a  new  school  would  have  been 
built  in  twenty- four  hours.  In  1910  a  companion 
law  was  passed,  forbidding  the  manufacture  of 
intoxicants  anywhere  in  the  State. 

As  the  saloon  and  anti-saloon  forces  were  grap- 
pling in  the  supreme  struggle  a  shocking  tragedy 
occurred,  the  worst  in  the  history  of  temperance 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      235 

warfare  in  America,  in  the  murder  of  Senator 
Edward  W.  Carmack,  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
and  honorable  members  the  United  States  Senate 
ever  had  from  the  South.  He  was  the  acknow- 
ledged champion  of  the  anti-saloon  cause  and  died 
as  a  martyr  to  his  active  and  efficient  leadership. 

In  1908  Senator  Carmack  entered  the  primary 
contest  for  the  Democratic  nomination  for  the 
Governorship  of  the  State  against  Governor  M. 
R.  Patterson.  Both  being  able  and  influential 
and  fine  orators,  the  campaign  was  a  sensational 
and  memorable  one.  State  Prohibition  was  the 
paramount  issue,  Carmack  favoring  and  Patter- 
son opposing  it.  Patterson  received  the  nomina- 
tion and  was  elected.  Carmack 'became  editor  of 
the  "Nashville  Tennessean,"  continued  his  relent- 
less war  on  the  liquor  traffic  with  his  pen  and 
demanded  of  the  Legislature  a  State-wide  prohibi- 
tory law.  One  of  his  editorials  offended  a  chief 
political  advisor  and  director  in  the  gubernatorial 
campaign,  and  he  with  his  son  waylaid  Senator 
Carmack  on  one  of  the  most  public  streets  of 
Nashville  and  shot  him  to  death. 

The  brewers  thought  that  as  they  had  elected 
their  Governor  and  the  champion  of  their  enemies 
was  out  of  the  way,  they  would  certainly  be  able 
to  defeat  State  Prohibition.  They  were  mistaken. 
The  shot  that  killed  Carmack  killed  the  saloons 
of  Tennessee,  and  aroused  the  temperance  people 
everywhere,  and  two  months  after  the  Legislature 


236     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

assembled,  they  rushed  to  the  capital  from  all 
parts  of  the  State  and  demanded  State  Prohibi- 
tion. A  company  of  them  marched  to  the  spot 
in  the  pavement  made  red  with  the  blood  of  their 
champion,  kneeled  about  it  and  prayed  to  God 
for  wisdom  and  help,  and  made  a  new  vow  of 
loyalty  to  the  cause  for  which  he  had  laid  down 
his  life.  Carmack's  ghost  was  the  chief  guest 
and  influence  in  the  Legislature.  Under  his  in- 
spiration the  "Four  Mile  law,"  meaning  State 
Prohibition,  was  passed,  and  though  Governor 
Patterson  vetoed  it,  it  was  passed  over  his  veto 
and  is  now  the  law. 

Judge  Cooper  and  his  son  were  sent  to  the 
penitentiary  for  twenty  years  for  the  murder  of 
Carmack.  Governor  Patterson  pardoned  them. 
Carmack's  spirit  dominated  the  next  guberna- 
torial campaign.  Patterson  did  not  stand  for  a 
third  term.  Ben  W.  Hooper,  who  ran  on  a  fusion 
ticket  of  Republicans  and  Independent  Demo- 
crats, was  elected,  on  a  platform  of  the  main- 
tenance and  rigid  enforcement  of  the  new  Prohi- 
bition Law,  over  United  States  Senator  Robert  L. 
Taylor,  thought  to  be  personally  the  most  popu- 
lar man  in  the  State.  Hooper  served  two  terms 
of  two  years  each.  He  had  to  call  a  special  ses- 
sion of  the  Legislature  three  times  before  he 
could  secure  any  law-enforcement  measures.  At 
last  he  got  some,  the  chief  one  being  the  "Nuis- 
ance Law." 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      237 

Toward  the  close  of  his  last  term  Governor 
Hooper  in  an  address  said: 

Five  years  ago  yesterday  Senator  Carmack,  the  leader 
of  the  fight  for  decent  government,  was  murdered  on  the 
streets  of  Nashville.  The  crying  of  his  blood  from  the 
ground  rallied  the  forces  of  good  government  in  the 
Legislature  of  1909,  and,  beside  the  State  prohibitory  law, 
there  was  an  election  law  which  deprived  the  liquor  in- 
terests of  their  control  of  the  ballot  boxes  of  the  people. 

The  Legislature  of  1915  passed  the  "ouster" 
bill,  removing  officers  for  non-enforcement  of  the 
no-license  law,  and  the  Soft  Drink  Stand  Act, 
which  have  aided  in  making  and  keeping  Nash- 
ville, Memphis,  Chattanooga  and  other  large 
cities  dry. 

The  "Anti-Shipping"  law  passed  under  Gov- 
ernor Hooper's  administration  was  declared  un- 
constitutional by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State. 
But  the  Legislature  of  1917  and  the  decision  of 
the  United  States  Supreme  Court  declaring  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Amendment  Bill  effective 
made  the  State  bone-dry. 

GOVERNOR  PATTERSON'S  CONVERSION 

The  contest  in  Tennessee  furnished  not  only 
the  most  horrible  tragedy  of  the  temperance  re- 
form movement  in  America  in  the  murder  of  Car- 
§mack,  but  one  of  its  most  dramatic  and  potential 


23 8     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

incidents,  the  conversion  of  Ex-Governor  Patter- 
son. It  was  a  staggering  blow  to  the  liquor  power, 
when  the  one  who  had  been  the  most  brilliant  and 
powerful  advocate  of  their  cause  in  Tennessee, 
if  not  in  the  nation,  publicly  confessed  his  mistake, 
fault  and  sin  and  his  profound  sorrow,  and  dedi- 
cated the  rest  of  his  life  to  the  destruction  of  the 
drink  traffic.  Patterson's  address  announcing  his 
change  of  heart  before  the  twentieth  anniversary 
of  the  foundation  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League, 
held  in  Columbus,  Ohio,  November  10-13,  I9I3> 
is  one  of  the  best  specimens  of  temperance  litera- 
ture to  be  found.  Among  other  things  he  said : 

The  Anti-Saloon  League  and  I  have  not  always  been 
friends.  The  paths  we  traveled  were  wide  apart.  They 
seemed  so  parallel  that  it  looked  incredible  that  they 
should  ever  meet.  But  they  have  met,  and  we  now  find 
ourselves  in  the  same  road,  marching  in  the  same  direc- 
tion, under  the  same  flag,  actuated  by  the  same  desire 
to  destroy  the  traffic  in  liquor  and  redeem  a  nation  from 
its  curse.  I  am  neither  ashamed  or  abashed  to  stand 
before  this  great  audience,  and  acknowledge  the  wrong 
when  I  once  advocated  policies  which  would  have  made 
legal  a  trade  which  I  have  come  to  look  upon  as  having 
no  rightful  place  in  the  scheme  and  economy  of  Chris- 
tian civilization.  I  grew  up  in  the  city  of  Memphis  where 
saloons  were  numerous  and  regarded  as  permanent  insti- 
tutions. I  can  not  remember  to  have  ever  heard  of  any 
movement  to  close  them  or  recall  any  speech  or  news- 
paper article  attacking  them.  I  became  a  lawyer,  was 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      239 

elected  prosecuting  attorney  of  the  District,  and  during 
my  incumbency  saloons  were  open  and  licensed  under  the 
law  and  were  without  restriction  as  to  numbers.  I  was 
afterward  sent  to  Congress,  where  I  served  six  years. 
At  this  time  liquor  was  openly  sold  in  the  restaurants  of 
both  wings  of  the  Capitol.  The  convenience  and  comfort 
with  which  intoxicating  drinks  could  be  obtained  often 
interfered  with  my  own  attendance  of  the  sessions,  and 
that  of  other  members,  and  distracted  attention  from  the 
duties  of  our  representation.  While  serving  in  Congress 
I  became  a  candidate  for  Governor  of  Tennessee.  I  was 
elected  on  a  platform  friendly  to  local  option,  but  against 
State  Prohibition.  In  my  message  to  the  Legislature  I 
declared  that  Prohibition  as  a  governmental  policy  was 
fundamentally  wrong,  and  that  I  would  veto  any  bill 
providing  for  it.  That  message  was  published  in  the 
press  of  Tennessee,  also  in  other  States.  It  has  been 
circulated  as  campaign  material,  published  in  liquor  jour- 
nals and  in  books,  and  used  as  arguments  by  those  who 
were  contesting  the  advance  of  the  Prohibition  sentiment. 
I  say  to  you  that  if  this  message  has  encouraged  lawless- 
ness, or  even  been  sought  as  a  refuge  for  violators  of  the 
law,  if  it  had  to  stand  as  my  last  expression  on  the  liquor 
question,  I  would  consume  it  in  the  living  fires  and  erase 
it  forever  from  the  minds  and  memories  of  men.  I  have 
seen  the  trail  of  liquor  in  the  criminal  courts  where  I 
have  prosecuted  crime.  I  know  and  have  been  a  parti- 
cipant in  its  paralyzing  and  corroding  influence  in  the 
public  and  social  life  of  our  National  Capital.  Going 
through  life  I  have  seen  it  drag  down  many  of  the  asso- 
ciates of  my  boyhood,  blasting  their  hopes  and  consigning 
them  to  untimely  graves.  I  have  seen  its  forked  lightning 


240     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

strike  my  firstborn,  the  child  of  my  young  manhood,  and 
have  borne  with  him  the  suffering  and  tried  to  help  him 
in  his  brave  but  sometimes  melancholy  struggle  for  re- 
demption. At  last  I  have  felt  the  foul  and  stealthy  blow 
as  it  turned  upon  me  in  its  deadly  and  shaming  wrath — 
upon  me,  who  had  pleaded  before  the  people  for  its  very 
existence.  Men  have  called  me  strong;  and  while  I  could 
see  its  harm  in  others,  I  thought  myself  immune,  as  thous- 
ands before  my  time  have  thought,  and  suffered  for  the 
thought.  All  this  I  knew  and  felt  without  a  revelation 
of  the  deep  pathos  and  meaning  of  it  all.  I  needed  help, 
for  I  was  groping  and  my  feet  were  stumbling  in  the 
dark.  Deep  in  humiliation,  tortured  and  condemned  by 
my  own  esteem,  which  is  the  severest  penalty  a  man  may 
afflict  upon  himself,  I  thought  of  the  oft-repeated  phrases 
about  personal  liberty,  of  the  power  of  the  human  will  to 
resist  temptation,  with  which  I  had  beguiled  myself,  and 
I  found  them  as  unsubstantial  as  the  fabric  of  a  dream. 
When  logic  failed  and  reason  gave  no  answer  I  cast  aside 
all  pride  of  opinion,  all  thought  of  what  the  world  might 
say  or  think,  and  went  to  the  throne  of  Almighty  God. 
There,  on  bended  knees,  I  asked  for  light  and  strength, 
and  they  came.  The  curtains  of  the  night  parted  and  the 
way  was  clear.  I  arose  a  changed  man.  An  invisible 
hand  has  led  me  on  to  where  the  vision  is  unobscured, 
and  the  purposes  of  life  stand  revealed.  From  a  critic 
of  others,  I  looked  within.  From  an  accuser,  I  became 
a  servant  in  my  own  house  to  set  it  in  order.  From  a 
vague  believer  in  the  guidance  of  Divine  Power,  I  have 
become  a  convert  to  its  infinite  truth.  From  an  unhappy 
and  dissatisfied  man,  out  of  tune  with  the  harmony  of 
life  and  religion,  I  have  become  happy  and  contented, 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      241 

firmly  anchored  in  the  faith  and  ready  to  testify  from  my 
own  experience  to  the  miraculous  power  of  God  to  cleanse 
the  souls  of  men.  Out  of  this  has  come  the  profound 
conviction  that  on  the  questions  with  which  I  had  to  Heal 
in  my  public  career,  all  my  arguments  and  all  my  conclu- 
sions, so  far  as  they  excused  or  justified  the  moral  right  or 
policy  of  the  State  to  legalize  the  sale  of  liquor,  and  thereby 
gave  sanction  to  the  ravages  on  society,  were  only  the 
empty  and  hopeless  statements  of  propositions  wrhich  had 
no  verity  or  application  to  a  thing  wholly  and  essentially 
evil,  and  concerning  which  no  principle  of  right  or  order 
or  liberty  should  ever  be  invoked  for  its  existence.  Civil- 
ized society  can  offer  no  excuse  for  the  temptations  which 
it  sets  before  humanity,  for  in  itself  and  of  itself  drunken- 
ness is  a  sin  without  a  reason,  a  degrading  crime  without 
a  recompense,  a  promoter  and  prolific  parent  of  other  sins 
and  crimes  which  sap  the  strength  and  wealth  of  men  and 
nations.  Abstinence  is,  therefore,  the  only  guarantee  of 
safety,  and  the  destruction  of  the  liquor  traffic  is  the  only 
guarantee  of  abstinence. 

After  the  personal  part  of  the  address  given 
above  Ex-Governor  Patterson  continued  at  length 
in  an  impassioned  arraignment  of  the  liquor  traf- 
fic for  its  wrongs  and  crimes.  Language  can  not 
adequately  express  the  effect  of  this  address  on 
the  audience.  During  its  delivery  the  four  thous- 
and delegates  frequently  burst  into  applause,  halt- 
ing the  speaker,  and  at  its  close  there  was  a  per- 
fect tumult  of  enthusiasm.  Round  after  round  of 
cheers  were  given.  The  people  stood  on  the  chairs, 


242     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

the  men  twirling  their  hats  on  their  canes,  the 
women  waving  their  wraps  and  handkerchiefs. 
Men  and  women,  old  and  young,  cried  like  chil- 
dren, and  laughed  while  they  cried  for  joy,  and 
shouted  praises  aloud,  and  spontaneously  broke 
out  into  songs  of  rejoicing  and  victory.  The  pen 
of  history  in  recording  the  most  eloquent  scenes 
of  American  oratory  can  hardly  omit  this  speech 
of  Patterson  before  the  Anti-Saloon  League  Con- 
vention. The  Ex-Governor  has  been  making  good 
his  pledge  in  touring  the  country,  scathingly  ar- 
raigning the  liquor  traffic,  and  pleading  eloquently 
for  nation-wide  Prohibition.  The  bolt  that  killed 
Carmack  and  the  vision  that  halted  Patterson  on 
his  way  to  Damascus  have  been  sad  specters  to 
haunt  the  mm  power  of  Tennessee  and  the  na- 
tion. 

In  February,  1917,  I  asked  United  States  Sena- 
tor Luke  Lea  of  Tennessee  for  a  brief  opinion  on 
the  working  and  effect  of  the  Prohibition  law  in 
his  State,  and  at  once  received  the  following: 

The  oft-repeated  argument  was  heard  by  those  opposed 
to  the  passage  of  the  Prohibition  laws,  that  they  could 
not  be  enforced,  and  that  disrespect  and  contempt  for 
law  would  be  one  of  the  results.  It  is  true  that  in  the 
larger  cities  of  the  State  there  was  not  the  strong  senti- 
ment favorable  to  prohibitory  legislation  at  the  time  of 
the  passage  of  these  laws  that  existed  in  the  country  dis- 
tricts. However,  eight  years  have  witnessed  a  steady 
growth  of  temperance  sentiment  in  the  State,  so  that 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      243 

to-day  the  four  large  cities  of  the  State,  Memphis,  Nash- 
ville, Chattanooga  and  Knoxville,  are  almost  completely 
"bone-dry."  There  is  not  an  open  saloon  in  any  of  these 
cities,  and  legislation  supplementing  the  Prohibition  laws 
which  have  been  enacted  by  the  present  session  of  the 
Legislature,  looking  to  the  prevention  of  shipment  into 
the  State  from  "wet"  territory,  will  completely  destroy 
even  the  so-called  "bootlegging"  traffic,  which  has  been 
in  vogue  to  some  extent  among  the  lower  elements  of 
our  city  populations.  I  think  Tennessee  is  better  morally 
and  economically  because  of  Prohibition,  and  if  left  to 
a  popular  referendum  at  this  time,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
it  would  carry  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 

Governor  Tom  C.  Rye,  of  Tennessee,  In  a 
speech  in  the  campaign  of  1916  for  the  Governor- 
ship for  the  second  term,  said: 

The  Democratic  Party  stands  committed  to  temperance, 
good  government  and  law  enforcement.  The  people  have 
definitely  and  finally  determined  that  the  manufacture 
and  sale  of  intoxicants  as  a  beverage  in  Tennessee  shall 
cease;  we  accept  this  as  an  accomplished  fact,  and  de- 
clare our  firm  opposition  to  any  movement  or  effort  to 
repeal  or  impair  existing  laws  for  the  suppression  of  the 
liquor  traffic  and  the  enforcement  of  the  laws.  This  is 
the  declaration  of  the  last  Democratic  platform. 

All  laws  for  this  purpose  were  endorsed  by  the  Demo- 
cratic Party  in  its  last  convention;  for  that  reason,  and 
for  the  further  and  better  reason  that  I  believe  these 
laws  are  right  and  should  be  enforced,  I  take  the  same 
position  now  that  I  did  as  a  candidate  two  years  ago, 


244     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

and  solemnly  declare  that  insofar  as  the  efforts  of  the 
Chief  Executive  of  the  State  and  the  powers  vested  in 
him  and  the  authority  given  by  legislative  enactment  will 
authorize  and  permit,  these  laws  shall  be  enforced  so  long 
as  I  enjoy  the  distinction  of  being  your  Governor.  I  am 
glad  to  announce  that  in  the  effort  made  along  these  lines 
I  have  had  the  hearty  cooperation  of  many  of  the  officials 
of  the  State  charged  with  the  duty  of  enforcing  the  law, 
and  I  am  encouraged  to  believe  that  in  the  future  all,  or 
practically  all,  the  officers  charged  with  these  responsible 
duties  will  be  found  industriously  exerting  themselves  in 
upholding  the  law  and  maintaining  the  dignity  of  the 
great  State  of  Tennessee. 

In  a  letter  of  February  16,  1917,  sending  me 
Governor  Rye's  speech,  his  private  secretary  says : 

Since  this  speech  was  delivered,  Governor  Rye  has  been 
inaugurated  for  a  second  term,  and  in  his  inaugural  ad- 
dress he  took  occasion  to  express  his  convictions  as  to  the 
necessity  of  the  General  Assembly  passing  the  so-called 
Bone-Dry  Law,  and  expressing  the  pleasure  he  would 
receive  in  having  the  privilege  of  signing  it.  This  act 
has  since  been  passed,  which  forbids  common  carriers  ship- 
ping intoxicating  liquors  into  the  State. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON  (Cont) 

WEST   VIRGINIA 

AFTER  the  tragical  contest  in  Tennessee 
there  was  a  lull  of  four  years,  which  the 
liquor  men  claimed  was  a  reaction  in  their 
favor,  but  which  the  temperance  people  said  was 
a  preparation  for  future  victories.  The  lull  was 
broken  by  West  Virginia,  which  on  November  5, 
1912,  achieved  one  of  the  most  significant  temper- 
ance victories  America  had  had  in  the  adoption  of 
a  constitutional  Prohibition  amendment  by  a  ma- 
jority of  93,342  out  of  a  total  vote  of  235,843, 
to  take  effect  July  I,  1914.  Only  two  counties 
voted  against  the  proposition  of  Prohibition.  The 
strange  part  of  the  contest  was  that  only  one  city 
in  the  State  went  "wet,"  while  the  oher  cities  and 
most  of  the  country  places  went  "dry."  Parkers- 
burg  voted  by  a  considerable  majority  for  the 
amendment. 

Rev.  Doctor  Thomas  Hare,  who  led  the  allied 
forces  in  the  contest,  in  accounting  for  the  victory, 
said  the  church  and  temperance  people  were  thor- 
oughly united  and  fairly  sowed  the  State  with  no- 
license  literature. 

245 


246     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Hon.  H.  D.  Hatfield,  Ex-Governor  of  West 
Virginia,  who  held  the  office  four  years,  thus 
speaks  of  the  workings  of  the  law:  uThe  general 
results  thus  far  in  the  matter  of  Prohibition  have 
been  satisfactory.  Many  who  were  against  the 
adoption  of  the  Prohibition  amendment  originally 
and  voted  against  it,  have  repeatedly  told  me  that 
if  an  opportunity  presented  itself  in  the  future  they 
would  reverse  their  action  and  favor  the  measure. 
Of  the  many  letters  sent  to  me  on  the  subject  I  will 
quote  this  one  from  the  manager  of  two  of  the 
largest  and  best  collieries  in  the  State:  "Since 
Prohibition  went  into  effect  we  have  had  com- 
paratively no  trouble  with  our  men  lying  off  from 
work,  fighting,  etc.  The  families  of  the  fathers 
and  sons  who  drank  are  better  cared  for  and  are 
perceptibly  more  prosperous.  We  are  troubled 
a  little  with  bootleggers,  but  I  assure  you  there  is 
not  one  pint  used  now  to  gallons  before  Prohibi- 
tion went  into  effect." 

VIRGINIA 

Before  the  Civil  war  there  was  only  a  light 
traffic  in  intoxicating  drinks  in  Virginia.  Some  of 
the  planters  got  enough  to  hurt  themselves  and 
their  promising  sons,  but  the  negroes  were  not 
allowed  to  have  it.  The  law  of  the  State  made 
it  a  crime  to  sell  intoxicants  to  a  slave  without  a 
permit  from  his  master.  And  the  master  was  too 
smart  to  give  to  his  slave  that  which  would  reduce 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      247 

his  earning  power,  create  a  criminal  menace  and 
shorten  his  life,  which  was  worth  a  thousand  dol- 
lars in  cold  money.  At  the  close  of  the  war  the 
brewers  and  distillers,  feeling  that  they  had  a 
joint  ownership  in  the  Government  because  they 
continued  to  pay  the  liquor  war  tax,  with  inso- 
lence and  energy  pushed  their  business  into  all  the 
States,  including  the  South,  where  they  found  in 
the  new-made  liberty  of  the  slave  an  especially 
fruitful  field.  In  the  midst  of  the  chaos  and  bitter 
conflict  of  the  reconstruction  period  in  Virginia 
the  saloon  was  thrust  as  a  new  disturbing  factor 
and  a  grave  menace  to  white  and  black  alike.  The 
good  people  of  the  State  sensed  the  danger  and 
began  at  once  to  resist  it.  Their  first  great  vic- 
tory was  achieved  in  1885,  when  the  Independent 
Order  of  Good  Templars,  that  modest  but  effi- 
cient pioneer  temperance  organization,  secured 
the  passage  of  a  Local  Option  Law  for  counties, 
cities,  and  towns  as  a  unit,  under  which  the  saloon 
was  driven  from  three-fourths  of  the  counties, 
nine-tenths  of  the  towns  and  one-half  of  the  cities 
of  the  State.  The  fight  for  Prohibition  in  1914 
was  fierce.  It  is  said  the  liquor  people  poured 
$1,000,000  into  the  campaign.  The  temperance 
and  church  people  were  united  and  organized 
completely,  down  to  captains  of  tens.  It  was 
found  necessary  in  the  contest  to  establish  a  daily 
newspaper,  the  "Richmond  Virginian,"  which 
Rev.  Doctor  James  Cannon,  Jr.,  leader  in  the 


248     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

fight,  claims  had  more  to  do  than  any  other  one 
thing  in  carrying  Virginia  for  Prohibition.  The 
vote,  which  was  taken  on  September  22,  1914, 
resulted  in  a  majority  of  30,365  out  of  a  total 
vote  of  150,000  for  Prohibition.  The  law  went 
into  effect  November  i,  1916. 

In  an  interview  Governor  Stewart  of  Virginia 
said  that  his  State  had  one  of  the  best  prohibitory 
laws  in  the  country  and  that  he  was  doing  his 
best  to  enforce  the  law  and  was  succeeding. 

Senator  Martin,  a  leader  in  the  Senate,  told 
me  that  Virginia  had  a  good  prohibitory  law, 
which  was  a  great  benefit;  that  it  was  enforced 
and  that  he  did  not  believe  the  peole  would  ever 
think  of  going  back  to  license. 

ARKANSAS 

For  many  years  they  had  local  option  in  Ar- 
kansas, and  also  the  three-mile  law,  which  for- 
bade a  drinking-place  within  three  miles  of  a 
church  or  school  on  petition  of  a  majority  of  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  territory  involved,  which 
included  mothers,  wives,  sisters,  and  daughters 
over  eighteen  years  of  age.  As  early  as  1902 
forty-four  counties  had  been  voted  dry,  leaving 
only  thirty-one  in  the  wet  column.  The  Legis- 
lature of  1907  abolished  crossroad  country  sa- 
loons, stopped  liquor  salesmen  from  going  into 
Prohibition  territory,  and  the  wholesale  houses 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      249 

from  advertising  liquors  in  the  papers  and  circu- 
lars in  territory  where  the  sale  of  liquor  was  for- 
bidden by  law.  The  Legislature  of  1915  passed 
a  State  prohibitory  law  which  took  effect  January 
i,  1916. 

Hon.  W.  F.  Kirby,  United  States  Senator  from 
Arkansas,  who  vouches  for  the  success  of  Prohi- 
bition in  his  State  and  works  actively  for  its  adop- 
tion by  the  nation,  in  a  letter  to  me  says,  "My 
position  has  been  well  defined  on  this  question  for 
a  long  time." 

SOUTH   CAROLINA 

South  Carolina,  like  the  other  Southern  States, 
was  moving  along  the  road  of  local  option  to 
State-wide  Prohibition  when  its  progress  was  in- 
terrupted by  the  adoption  of  the  Dispensary  Sys- 
tem of  regulating  the  liquor  traffic,  which  is  a 
system  of  State  control  of  the  same.  In  1896 
United  States  Senator  Tillman,  who  believed  in 
the  dispensary  as  a  wise  solution  of  the  question,, 
by  his  powerful  personal  influence  had  it  incor- 
porated into  the  State  constitution.  As  a  revenue- 
producer  when  honestly  administered  it  was  a 
success,  but  in  places  it  was  maladministered  and 
became  a  scandal.  As  a  moral  measure  the  dis- 
pensary was  a  failure.  Its  record  of  vice  and 
crime  showed  an  increase  over  the  license  system. 
On  September  14,  1915,  South  Carolina  adopted 
State-wide  Prohibition  by  a  vote  of  41,735  to 


250     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

16,809,  being  a  vote  of  two  and  a  half  to  one. 
Every  county  in  the  State  but  one  voted  no  license. 
In  a  personal  interview  Governor  Manning  told 
me  of  the  difficulties  encountered  in  enforcing  the 
prohibitory  law,  and  how  he  had  successfully  over- 
come them.  I  asked  him  for  his  views  on  the 
liquor  situation  for  publication,  and  he  gave  me 
the  following: 

When  I  became  Governor  of  South  Carolina,  three 
years  ago,  the  liquor  business  was  regulated  under  a  gal- 
lon-a-month  act.  I  at  once  inaugurated  a  campaign  of 
enforcement  of  the  law,  using  county,  municipal  and  State 
officers  to  enforce  it.  In  places  where  the  law  had  been 
most  flagrantly  violated,  substantial  improvement  was 
made,  and  the  amount  of  the  illegal  sale  of  liquor  greatly 
curtailed.  Last  winter  the  Legislature  of  South  Carolina 
passed  a  law  reducing  the  amount  to  any  person  to  a 
quart  a  month,  for  medicinal,  scientific  and  sacramental 
purposes.  Under  this  act,  the  sale  of  liquor  was  pro- 
hibited to  minors,  to  students  of  college,  to  women  other 
than  the  head  of  a  family,  and  provision  made  for  the 
enforcement  of  the  law  by  State  constabulary.  Under 
the  provisions  of  this  act,  an  aggressive  improvement  has 
been  waged  against  the  use  and  illicit  sale  of  liquor,  with 
the  result  of  greatly  improved  conditions. 

My  policy  is  to  steadily  tighten  the  hand  of  the  law 
against  offenders,  and  the  result  shows  a  condition  better 
than  even  the  most  ardent  advocates  of  the  measure  hoped 
for.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  law  is  absolutely  fol- 
lowed, but  public  sentiment  has  been  aroused,  convictions 
are  had  for  violations,  and  the  State  is  more  nearly  "dry" 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      251 

than  we  had  hoped  could  be  brought  about  in  this  short 
time.  The  public  is  realizing  the  advantage  of  these 
strict  prohibitory  measures,  and  public  sentiment  is  now 
behind  the  measure. 


SOUTHERN    STATES    WHICH    HAVE    NOT   ADOPTED 
PROHIBITION 

MARYLAND 

State-wide  Prohibition  lost  in  the  popular  elec- 
tion of  1916  in  Maryland,  but  quite  an  advance  in 
dry  territory  was  made  the  same  day.  But  for  the 
powerful  influence  of  the  liquor-dealers  of  Balti- 
more the  State  would  have  adopted  Prohibition 
by  this  time.  There  is  a  wholesome  public  senti- 
ment moving  steadily  toward  State  Prohibition. 

KENTUCKY 

There  are  few  surprises  to  friend  or  foe 
greater  than  the  temperance  situation  in  Kentucky. 
There  are  106  dry  counties  in  the  State  and  only 
fourteen  that  are  wet.  Old  Bourbon  County, 
said  to  have  been  the  mother  of  the  best  whisky 
in  the  world,  is  in  the  dry  column.  J.  C.  W. 
Beckham  was  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate 
from  Kentucky  on  a  Prohibition  platform,  and  is 
one  of  the  ablest  anti-liquor  leaders  in  that  body. 
Kentucky  would  have  been  dry  long  ago  but  for 
the  tremendously  powerful  distillery  influence  in 
Louisville  and  its  corrupt  alliance  with  politics. 


252     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

The  liquor  people  of  Kentucky  had  just  as  well 
save  their  money,  throw  up  their  hands  and  sur- 
render, as  John  Barleycorn  has  been  killed,  and 
the  State  in  the  immediate  future  will  fairly  skip 
into  the  Prohibition  ranks. 


MISSOURI 

Missouri  has  for  many  years  been  under  a 
local  option  law  by  counties,  excepting  cities  of 
2,500  population  or  more,  allowing  them  voting 
units,  and  leaving  St.  Louis  as  a  civic  unit  by  it- 
self. It  would  have  been  thought  that  the  over- 
whelming defeat  Prohibition  received  at  the  polls 
three  or  four  years  ago  would  have  set  the  cause 
back  a  decade.  It  had  a  contrary  effect,  nerved 
the  temperance  people  for  more  vigorous  work, 
and  now  eighty-one  out  of  the  114  counties  are 
dry,  including  nearly  fifty-one  per  cent,  of  the 
population.  Of  the  69,000  square  miles  of  ter- 
ritory 53,000  are  under  no-license. 

The  State  would  doubtless  have  adopted  Pro- 
hibition had  it  not  been  for  the  opposition  of  the 
Anheuser  Busch  Brewery  Company  of  St.  Louis, 
perhaps  the  most  powerful  enemy  of  Prohibition 
in  America.  When  it  looked  as  though  the  State 
Legislature  were  likely  to  pass  a  prohibitory  law 
the  representatives  of  this  brewery,  whose  adver- 
tisements, carried  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  fill 
the  sides  of  houses  and  long  fences,  played  the 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      253 

baby  act  and  pitifully  pleaded  for  mercy  and  beg- 
ged the  members  not  to  drive  them  out  of  the 
State.  An  anti-saloon  leader  told  me  the  other 
day  that  the  State  would  go  no-license  at  the  next 
election  on  the  question. 

Senator  Stone,  who  astonished  the  nation  by 
voting  yes  last  summer  on  the  National  Constitu- 
tional Amendment  proposition  after  having  been 
one  of  the  most  efficient  advocates  of  the  liquor 
cause,  did  not  imperil  himself  politically  by  doing 
so,  taking  into  account  the  strong  temperance 
sentiment  in  his  State. 

FLORIDA 

Up  to  about  thirty  years  ago  a  license  could 
be  taken  out  to  sell  liquor  anywhere  in  the  State 
of  Florida.  But  in  1887  Article  19  was  added 
to  the  Constitution.  The  people  by  the  use  of 
this  law  had  by  1907  cleared  the  saloons  from 
thirty-three  of  the  forty-six  counties  of  the  State. 

The  temperance  leaders  secured  from  the  Legis- 
lature of  1915  the  passage  of  the  drastic  Davis 
Restrictive  Law,  which  at  one  stroke  killed  200 
of  the  less  than  300  drinking-places,  leaving  at 
this  time  only  seventy-five  mail-order  and  retail 
liquor-stores  in  the  whole  State.  The  temperance 
people  charge  that  the  millionaire  owners  of  the 
palatial  seaside  hotels  and  pleasure  resorts,  de- 
termined to  retain  their  bars  for  the  accommoda- 


254     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

:ion  of  their  rich  and  ruddy  guests,  have  been  the 
most  powerful  enemies  Prohibition  has  had,  in 
their  baleful  influence  at  the  State  capital  and  in 
the  popular  elections.  They  may  just  as  well  save 
their  money  and  adjust  themselves  to  the  temper 
and  desire  of  the  South,  as  the  Legislature  of 
1917  granted  a  referendum,  and  it  is  morally 
certain  the  people  will  vote  Prohibition.  Florida 
adopted  prohibition  Nov.  5,  1918. 

LOUISIANA 

The  liquor  dealers  have  for  many  years  domi- 
nated the  politics  of  Louisiana.  They  have  been 
entrenched  in  their  headquarters  in  New  Orleans, 
the  stronghold  of  their  cause  in  the  South. 

In  New  Orleans,  with  its  many  foreigners  and 
pleasure-loving  people,  and  in  the  other  wet  par- 
ishes as  well,  the  rum  rule  has  largely  nullified 
the  Gay-Shattuck  Law.  Notwithstanding  the  sa- 
loon's grip  on  politics,  the  people  have  by  their 
parish  local  option  voted  the  traffic  from  consider- 
ably more  than  one-half  of  the  geographical  area, 
and  from  fifty-one  per  cent,  of  the  population,  of 
the  State  of  Louisiana. 

TEXAS 

Texas  is  an  empire  in  itself.  It  is  not  only  the 
largest  State  in  the  Union,  but  it  is  the  most  pro- 
ductive one  agriculturally,  having  recently  taken 
the  primacy  away  from  Illinois.  It  is  an  empire 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      255 

morally.  From  the  dry  territory  in  this  State 
alone  can  be  cut  out  Maine,  New  Hampshire, 
Vermont,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connect- 
icut, New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Dela- 
ware and  Ohio,  and  then  have  20,000  square 
miles  left  over.  The  number  of  its  people  living 
under  no-license  is  700,000  more  than  the  com- 
bined population  of  all  of  the  New  England 
States  with  the  exception  of  Massachusetts.  Thus 
the  "pepper-box,"  and  "tooth-pick,"  the  revolver 
and  dagger  of  the  pioneer  Texan  ranger,  have 
given  way  in  so  short  a  time  to  one  of  the  best 
civilizations  known. 

In  1875,  eighteen  years  before  the  Anti-Saloon 
League  was  born  in  America,  the  United  Friends 
of  Temperance  wrote  into  the  constitution  of 
Texas  the  local  option  provision  now  in  force, 
and  the  next  year  the  people  ratified  it  by  a  popu- 
lar vote.  In  1887  a  constitutional  Prohibition 
amendment  was  defeated  at  the  polls  by  91,357. 
On  July  22,  1911,  there  was  another  fierce  fight 
over  State-wide  Prohibition,  with  231,096  for  the 
amendment  and  237,303  against  it,  an  adverse 
majority  of  6,307, 

The  year  following,  Morris  Sheppard  was 
elected  to  the  United  States  Senate,  and  a  ma- 
jority of  the  Congressmen  to  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives on  a  Prohibition  platform.  The  no- 
liquor  candidate  for  Governor,  however,  was 
elected.  I  had  a  delightful  interview  with  Sena- 


256     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

tor  Morris  Sheppard,  of  nation-wide  fame,  as  to 
the  great  success  of  Prohibition  in  the  South  and 
throughout  the  nation,  in  which  he  prophesied 
that  the  great  State  of  Texas  would  take  her  place 
with  her  sister  States  of  the  South  in  the  no- 
license  column  at  the  next  election  on  the  question. 
I  asked  the  Senator  if  he  would  give  me  in  small 
space  his  views  on  the  relation  of  the  liquor  prob- 
lem to  State  legislation,  and  he  gave  me  the  fol- 
lowing : 

Shall  a  State  confess  itself  powerless  by  law  to  abolish 
the  traffic  in  a  drug  that  will  sap  the  physical  strength 
of  its  people,  reduce  them  in  ever-growing  numbers  to 
intellectual  and  moral  ruin,  affect  their  collective  capacity 
for  the  exercise  of  free  institutions  to  such  an  extent  as 
to  imperil  the  priceless  gift  of  liberty,  destroy  all  hope  of 
further  progress  in  the  various  lines  of  human  endeavor, 
and,  corrupting  the  very  foundations  of  reproduction,  con- 
vert posterity  into  a  race  of  weaklings  and  degenerates? 
If  a  State  has  not  the  right  to  defend  itself  against  such 
an  enemy  with  the  strong  arm  of  statutory  laws,  it  had 
as  well  dissolve.  Is  it  not  folly  to  assert  that  a  State  can 
not  preserve  its  own  existence?  If  the  police  power  of 
a  State  may  be  invoked  to  take  individual  property  with- 
out compensation,  in  order  to  prevent  the  destruction  of 
other  property,  as  in  the  case  of  a  conflagration,  or  in 
order  to  preserve  the  lives  and  health  of  its  citizens,  as 
in  the  case  of  an  epidemic,  how  much  more  justly  may 
that  same  power  be  employed  to  stop  a  traffic  that  imperils 
the  existence  of  the  State  itself  and  threatens  the  lives  of 
multiplied  thousands  of  its  people?  The  appearance  of 


SOUTH  ABOLISHES  THE  SALOON      257 

an  invading  army  in  a  single  county  of  our  State  would 
bring  to  arms  three-quarters  of  a  million  Texans  to  de- 
fend the  honor  and  the  existence  of  the  Commonwealth. 
The  liquor  traffic  is  a  far  deadlier  enemy  of  the  State 
than  an  invading  army  could  ever  be.  It  is  a  perpetual 
menace  to  the  life  of  the  individual  and  the  existence  of 
the  State.  They  tell  us  we  cannot  enforce  a  State-wide 
prohibitory  law.  We  tell  them  the  people  of  Texas  have 
not  lost  the  capacity  of  self-government  or  self-preserva- 
tion. The  adoption  of  the  State-wide  amendment  is  but 
a  step.  The  next  step  will  be  the  election  of  men  to 
executive  office  in  whom  the  spirit  of  Goliad  and  San 
Jacinto  still  lives. 

Texas  adopted  prohibition  in  1918.  Action 
declared  unconstitutional. 

WHY  A  SOLID  SOUTH  AGAINST  KING  ALCOHOL 

There  are  reasons  why  the  South  should  take 
the  lead  in  this  Prohibition  movement.  It  was 
necessary  to  remove  the  saloon  from  the  negro 
to  save  Southern  industry  and  civilization. 

The  late  Booker  T.  Washington  said,  "The 
abolition  of  the  barroom  is  a  blessing  to  the  negro, 
second  only  to  the  abolition  of  slavery.  Two- 
thirds  of  the  mobs,  lynchings  and  burnings  at  the 
stake  are  the  result  of  bad  whisky  drunk  by  bad 
black  men  and  bad  white  men." 

Besides,  the  South  is  intensely  American.  In 
the  fourteen  Southern  States  there  are  but  sixteen 
foreign-born  persons  to  every  1,000  inhabitants. 
In  Ohio,  California,  Pennsylvania,  New  York, 
Illinois  and  Wisconsin  there  are  178  foreign-born 


258     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

persons  to  every  1,000  inhabitants.  In  the  moun- 
tain disticts  of  the  South,  where  the  foreign-born 
population  is  the  least  in  America,  there  are  al- 
most no  drinking-places.  The  "moonshiners" 
hide  in  some  of  the  mountain  dens,  but  there  >vere 
scarcely  twenty  open  saloons  in  the  mountain  dis- 
tricts of  Virginia,  West  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Ten- 
nessee, North  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  Arkansas, 
even  before  any  of  these  States  had  gone  dry.  It 
is  not  hard  to  get  the  liquor  traffic  away  from  so 
homogeneous  a  population. 

The  Southern  people  are  sentimental  and  en- 
thusiastic, and  do  what  they  do  with  an  intense 
zeal.  As  a  rule  they  have  a  deep  religious  in- 
stinct and  the  highest  moral  ideals;  the  territory 
is  good  ground  for  Prohibition.  Thus  there  are 
other  reasons  than  the  race  problem  which  have 
made  for  such  local  success  in  the  South.  The 
negro  question  has  had  nothing  to  do  with  Pro- 
hibition in  Maine,  Kansas,  North  Dakota,  or 
other  States  of  the  North  that  have  gone  dry. 
The  work  of  abolishing  the  saloon  met  least  re- 
sistance in  the  plantation  sections  of  the  South 
and  the  rural  districts  of  the  North.  It  has  now 
gotten  into  the  cities  and  will  sweep  them.  Much 
of  the  marvelous  growth  and  glory  of  the  New 
South,  whose  progress  in  some  regards  has  out- 
stripped that  of  any  other  section,  can  be  traced 
to  its  inveterate  hatred  of  and  deadly  warfare  on 
the  saloon. 


CHAPTER  XII 

PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST 

THE  fires  of  Prohibition  burning  in  the  cot- 
ton fields  of  the  South  crossed  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line  and  caught  in  the  prair- 
ies, cornfields  and  wheatfields  of  the  West  and, 
raging  with  merciless  fury,  wiped  out  the  brewer- 
ies, distilleries  and  saloons  in  its  path.  In  one  day, 
the  3d  of  November,  1914,  four  of  these  States 
went  dry  at  the  polls,  thereby  securing  constitu- 
tional Prohibition.  They  were  Arizona,  Colorado, 
Oregon  and  Washington.  We  have  not  space  for 
such  detailed  history  of  the  war  on  the  liquor 
traffic  in  the  Western  States  as  we  gave  of  that 
in  the  South,  but  we  will  give  room  for  the  testi- 
mony of  the  highest  possible  authority  on  the  suc- 
cessful working  of  Prohibition  in  the  Northern 
States — testimony  that  would  convict  King  Alco- 
hol of  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors  in  any  court 
on  earth. 

ARIZONA 

The  action  of  Arizona  was  a  surprise,  as 
hardly  more  than  a  fifth  of  the  population  was 
under  no-license  laws.  There  was  harmony  be- 

259 


260     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

tween  the  temperance  forces,  as  well  as  organiza- 
tion and  intense  activity  in  the  campaign.  The 
law  took  effect  January  i,  1915.  Women's  votes 
contributed  to  the  result. 

I  wrote  to  Governor  Thomas  E.  Campbell, 
asking  him  how  Prohibition  worked  in  his  State, 
and  received  the  following  reply:  "Arizona  went 
into  the  'dry'  column  of  January  i,  1915,  by  con- 
stitutional amendment.  Thus  we  have  had  a  term 
of  two  years  by  which  to  judge  the  merits  of  the 
case  as  affecting  this  State,  and  for  comparison 
with  years  in  the  bygone  'wet'  history  of  the 
State.  Merchants  and  bankers,  regardless  of 
their  personal  attitude  to  the  use  of  liquor,  unani- 
mously report  increased  business,  better  credits 
and  more  cash  from  the  savings  of  workers.  The 
jails  throughout  the  State  are  nearly  empty,  ex- 
cept in  cases  of  men  charged  with  unlawfully  sell- 
ing whisky;  few  commitments  are  of  record  for 
drunkenness,  and  many  justices  of  the  peace  have 
practically  nothing  in  the  way  of  criminal  busi- 
ness. Mercantile  companies  noticed  a  betterment 
in  credits  within  six  months  after  the  'dry'  amend- 
ment went  into  effect,  and  the  improvement  con- 
tinues. Money  outstanding  before  January  i, 
1915,  represented  a  great  sum  and  a  huge  eco- 
nomic waste.  When  it  became  impossible  to  ob- 
tain liquor  in  large  quantities,  this  condition  was 
bettered  at  once,  and  business  men  who  had  most 
bitterly  opposed  the  Prohibition  amendment  rap- 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     261 

idly  became  its  best  friends.  A  'bone-dry'  law, 
under  which  no  liquor  can  be  brought  into  Arizona 
for  any  but  sacramental  purposes,  passed  the 
Legislature  on  March  8  last.  Arizona  is  satis- 
fied. In  the  family  the  greatest  improvement  is 
seen.  The  wife  and  children  of  the  Arizona 
wage-earner  are  better  clothed  and  fed  than  ever 
before,  and  there  is  ample  money  for  needed  vaca- 
tions. If  the  matter  should  ever  be  brought  to 
vote,  I  am  confident  that  bone-dry  Prohibition 
would  triumph  by  three  to  one." 

COLORADO 

The  victory  of  the  anti-saloon  forces  in  Colo- 
rado was  brought  about  by  complete  organization 
and  persistent  neyspaper  advertising.  The  vio- 
lence in  the  strike  zone  had  its  influence.  Billy 
Sunday,  the  peerless  evangelist,  with  his  great  re- 
vival in  the  State,  made  many  Prohibition  votes. 
Billy  Sunday  is  one  of  the  most  bitter,  relentless 
and  efficient  enemies  of  booze  the  generation  has 
raised  up.  In  a  conversation  I  had  with  Gover- 
nor Julius  C.  Gunter  he  spoke  of  some  of  the 
difficulties  in  enforcing  the  prohibitory  law,  but 
had  great  enthusiasm  in  its  success  and  its  bene- 
fits. I  quote  him  from  a  statement  made  not  long 
ago  to  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union 
for  publication  in  the  "Union  Signal" : 

A  prohibition  constitutional  amendment  was  adopted 
in  the  State  of  Colorado  at  the  November  election  of  1914, 


262     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

by  a  majority  of  about  11,000  votes,  to  become  effective 
January  i,  1915.  After  one  year  of  Prohibition  a  large 
majority  of  those  most  radically  opposed  to  the  amend- 
ment at  the  time  of  its  submission  are  its  most  ardent 
supporters  to-day.  Should  the  question  of  Prohibition  be 
again  submitted  to  the  people  of  this  State,  the  majority 
of  1914  would  be  manifolded.  As  an  evidence  of  this, 
the  beer  amendment  submitted  to  the  voters  at  the  No- 
vember election  of  1916  was  defeated  by  a  majority  of 
85,789.  The  practical  benefits  which  are  most  conspicuous 
are  the  relief  of  suffering  among  women  and  children, 
the  decrease  in  demand  on  charitable  organizations,  the 
great  decrease  in  crime  and  consequent  committals  to 
state  prisons,  and  increase  in  the  number  of  new  savings 
accounts  opened  by  the  various  banks  throughout  the 
State,  totaling  119,000.  The  Legislature,  which  is  now 
in  session,  will  doubtless  amend  the  present  statute,  tend- 
ing to  a  more  effective  and  rigid  enforcement  of  the  law, 
as  suggested  in  the  inaugural  address  of  the  incoming 
Governor. 

United  States  Senator  Thomas  told  me  that 
the  prohibitory  law  of  Colorado  not  only  justi- 
fied the  action  of  its  friends,  but  converted  the 
views  of  many  who  voted  against  it.  He  said  the 
benefits  of  the  law  were  seen  everywhere.  He 
said  the  success  in  the  cities  surprised  the  friends 
as  well  as  the  enemies  of  the  proposition.  Sena- 
tor Thomas  expressed  this  sentiment  in  a  debate 
in  the  Senate  recently,  when  he  said : 

I  interrupted  the  Senator  from  Washington  also  be- 
cause the  city  of  Denver  is  only  a  few  thousand  smaller 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     263 

in  population  than  the  city  of  Seattle,  and  the  argument 
made  in  Denver  against  Prohibition — and  I  thought  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  it — was  along  the  same  lines  on  which 
it  was  made  by  the  editor  of  the  paper  from  which  the 
Senator  has  read.  The  prophecies  and  predictions  which 
were  made  of  the  effect  of  Prohibition  upon  large  cities 
— it  being  conceded  that  it  would  not  be  the  same  in  the 
smaller  places — have  all  keen  unverified  by  the  logic  of 
events. 

Senator  John  F.  Shafroth,  who  takes  pride  in 
the  victory  over  the  saloon  in  his  State,  and  is  an 
active  friend  of  Prohibition  in  the  Senate,  has 
sent  me  a  little  pamphlet,  from  which  I  take  the 
following : 

There  was  a  time  when  there  were  less  restrictions  and 
when  there  were  no  licenses,  and  then  when  licenses  re- 
quired only  a  small  payment.  But  as  each  step  has  been 
taken  the  realization  of  the  people  has  grown  that  the 
greatest  curse  this  country  has  ever  had  or  the  people  of 
the  world  have  ever  had  is  the  work  of  the  saloon  and 
the  excessive  use  of  intoxicating  liquors.  That  is  what 
has  caused  the  sentiment  and  what  has  caused  the  change 
in  the  situation  as  to  submission. 

There  was  a  time  when  legislators  would  not  think  of 
submitting  the  question  of  Prohibition  to  the  people  of 
a  State.  Oh,  no.  You  must  take  it  to  a  community;  you 
must  take  it  to  a  county.  There  was  a  time  when  a  city 
council  could  not  submit  it  to  the  entire  city,  but  would 
submit  it  simply  to  a  ward  of  that  city  or  to  a  precinct 
of  that  city.  But  as  the  evil  has  been  shown,  as  the  detri- 


264     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

mental  effect  of  the  use  of  liquor  has  been  demonstrated, 
as  its  effect  upon  civilization  has  been  made  clear,  there 
has  developed  this  overwhelming  sentiment  against  it. 

OREGON 

In  Oregon  all  but  two  counties  voted  for  Pro- 
hibition, and  Portland,  a  city  of  250,000,  went 
dry  by  a  majority  of  1832. 

I  have  the  following  letter  from  Governor 
James  Withycombe : 

Replying  to  your  inquiry  as  to  the  progress  of  Prohi- 
bition in  Oregon,  I  have  to  report  that  in  1915  at  the 
general  election  the  State  went  "dry"  by  a  large  majority. 
Under  the  law  as  subsequently  drawn  by  the  Legislature, 
in  effect  the  past  two  years,  the  sale  and  manufacture  of 
intoxicants  was  prohibited  in  the  State,  and  two  quarts 
of  alcoholic  beverage  or  twenty-four  quarts  of  beer  could 
be  imported  once  in  each  28  days.  At  the  general  elec- 
tion in  November,  1916,  an  initiative  measure  was  adopted 
by  the  people  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  making  the 
State  "bone-dry."  It  is  not  legal  to  import  any  intoxi- 
cants whatsoever  into  the  State,  or  to  have  the  same  in 
one's  possession  unless  it  was  legally  received  prior  to  the 
enactment  of  the  new  law.  I  am  free  to  say  that  there 
is  every  indication  that  Prohibition  has  been  and  is  suc- 
cessful in  Oregon,  from  an  economic  as  well  as  a  social 
and  moral  standpoint.  I  am  confident  that  under  no  con- 
ditions whatsoever  would  the  electorate  of  this  State  per- 
mit the  return  of  the  saloon. 

Hon.  George  E.   Chamberlain,  United  States 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     265- 

Senator   from   Oregon,    sent   me   the   following 
communication  for  publication : 

The  States  of  the  Union  are  saying  one  by  one  that 
the  saloon  must  go ;  and  that  means  that  alcohol  in  all  its 
forms  must  cease  to  be  used  as  a  beverage.  The  reason 
for  this  is,  first — and  most  important  of  all — the  fact 
that  in  order  to  be  efficient  a  man  must  be  sober ;  and  that 
does  not  mean  merely  that  he  must  be  sober  at  the  time 
his  hand  is  accomplishing  a  task,  but  that  he  must  have 
been  sober  for  some  time  prior,  in  order  that  there  be  a 
steadiness  of  head  and  heart  and  hand.  In  other  words, 
efficiency  has  demanded  these  qualifications  of  men  in 
every  walk  of  life.  Railroad  corporations,  great  indus- 
trial and  commercial  organizations,  whether  corporate  or 
individual,  will  not  employ  men  who  patronize  the  saloon 
or  indulge  in  the  use  of  intoxicants.  They  have  found  out 
that  the  use  of  these  is  inconsistent  with  efficiency,  and  in 
order  to  secure  employment  a  man  must  either  give  up  al- 
cohol or  give  up  the  chance  of  earning  a  support  for  himself 
and  those  dependent  upon  him.  What  stronger  argument 
was  ever  educed  to  sustain  the  position  here  assumed  than 
the  fact  that  the  powers  now  engaged  in  the  European  War 
— the  most  terrible  in  the  history  of  the  world — put  a  ban 
upon  the  traffic  in  alcohol  ?  This  was  necessary  to  efficiency 
in  a  fighting  force.  But,  aside  from  the  question  of  effi- 
ciency, the  second  reason  for  the  change  in  public  senti- 
ment is  the  saloon.  It  has  been  instrumental  in  wrecking 
more  homes,  destroying  more  lives  and  bringing  more 
sorrow  into  the  world  than  any  one  instrumentality  in 
the  world.  Instead  of  being  outlawed,  as  its  acts  de- 
manded that  it  should  be,  it  has  been  recognized  and 


266     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

licensed,  and  ft  has  taken  years  to  make  the  people  under- 
stand the  disaster  that  the  saloon  has  wrought  upon  the 
moral  fiber  of  our  civilization.  Neither  youth,  nor  age, 
nor  sex,  nor  condition  has  been  exempted  from  the  ravages 
that  this  curse  has  wrought.  But  its  death  knell  is  soon 
to  be  sounded,  in  America,  at  least.  Forty  years  ago  there 
was  scarcely  a  village,  or  a  town,  or  a  city,  in  Oregon 
where  the  saloon  did  not  exist,  and  the  more  prosperous 
the  community  the  more  numerous  the  saloons.  But 
gradually  the  sentiment  of  the  people  of  that  progressive 
State  has  changed,  and  when  once  the  people  by  consti- 
tutional amendment  secured  for  themselves  the  right  to 
enact  legislation  the  saloon  began  to  lose  its  power  in 
politics,  and  now  the  State  is  absolutely  Prohibition  ter- 
ritory. Its  effect  will  be  to  close  the  jails  in  the  smaller 
towns,  diminish  crimes  in  the  cities,  and  elevate  the  moral 
tone  of  the  whole  State. 

WASHINGTON 

Prohibition  won  in  Washington  by  a  majority 
of  18,632,  carrying  all  but  six  counties. 

Hon.  Ernest  Lester,  Governor  of  the  State  of 
Washington,  under  date  of  February  19,  1917, 
wrote  me  as  follows: 

I  have  at  hand  your  letter  of  the  I2th  inst.,  wherein 
you  ask  an  expression  from  me  regarding  Prohibition  in 
the  State  of  Washington.  Replying  I  may  say  that  sa- 
loons in  the  State  of  Washington  were  closed  on  January 
I,  1916,  under  the  provisions  of  a  law  enacted  by  the 
people  at  the  general  election  held  in  November,  1914. 
It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  there  have  been  no 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST    267 

violations  of  the  law.  I  am  confident,  however,  that  were 
the  same  law  to  be  again  submitted  to  the  voters,  it  would 
be  enacted  by  an  even  larger  majority  than  was  given 
to  it  in  1914.  Sentiment  in  the  State  on  this  subject  is 
best  indicated  by  the  vote  given  at  the  general  election 
last  November  on  two  initiative  bills  submitted  to  the 
people,  and  which  would  virtually  have  nullified  the  dry 
law  had  they  been  enacted.  Both  of  these  measures  were 
overwhelmingly  defeated. 

In  my  message  to  the  Legislature,  delivered  on  January 
10,  I  recommended  the  enactment  of  a  "bone-dry"  law. 
Such  a  law  has  been  passed  by  both  Houses  of  the  Legis- 
lature, and  I  now  have  it  before  me  for  consideration.  I 
expect  to  approve  it  today. 

There  is  no  argument  but  that  the  State  of  Washing- 
ton and  its  people  are  better  off  in  every  respect  with  sa- 
loons closed  than  they  were  when  the  saloons  were  in 
operation.  The  "bone-dry"  law  to  which  I  refer  will, 
in  my  opinion,  be  of  great  benefit  and  value  to  the  citizens 
of  the  State  as  soon  as  it  goes  into  effect. 

Senator  Wesley  L.  Jones,  of  Washington,  in  a 
conversation  concerning  the  success  of  Prohibition 
in  his  State,  gave  me  the  following  information 
and  comment : 

We  have  had  Prohibition  in  the  State  of  Washington 
since  January  i,  1916.  The  predictions  of  dire  disaster 
by  those  who  opposed  it  have  not  come  true.  Beneficial 
business  has  not  been  destroyed,  but  has  been  stimulated 
and  improved.  Savings-bank  deposits  have  increased,  more 
comforts  and  necessaries  have  been  brought  to  our  homes 
than  ever  before.  Women  and  children  have  been  made 


268     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

comfortable  and  happy.  Crime  and  poverty  have  been 
greatly  lessened  and  our  jails  and  almshouses  have  been 
emptied.  Business  men,  professional  men  and  laboring 
men  who  opposed  the  law  now  praise  it  most  warmly  and 
express  the  hope  that  it  will  never  be  repealed.  Person- 
ally, I  have  long  been  in  favor  of  Prohibition  and  of 
every  step  that  would  lead  to  it,  and  have  done  what  I 
could  to  bring  it  about.  I  hope  National  Prohibition 
will  soon  come.  It  will  promote  the  growth  of  business, 
the  welfare  of  labor,  the  happiness  of  the  home,  the  con- 
servation of  health  and  manhood,  the  strengthening  of 
our  citizenship  and  the  prosperity  and  welfare  of  the 
nation. 

Senator  Jones  also  gave  me  a  copy  of  an  inter- 
view of  Major  Blethen,  a  Seattle  editor,  in  the 
"Kansas  City  Times,"  who  had  been  an  opponent 
of  Prohibition  in  the  campaign,  but  who  acknowl- 
edges his  conversion  and  thus  testifies  to  its 
wonderful  success  in  Seattle: 

My  paper  fought  its  hardest  against  Prohibition.  We 
fought  it  on  economic  grounds  alone.  We  believed  that 
in  a  great  seaport  city  with  a  population  of  upward  of 
300,000  Prohibition  would  be  destructive;  it  would  bring 
on  economic  disaster.  We  believed  that  under  our  sys- 
tem of  licensing  saloons  we  had  the  liquor  traffic  about 
as  well  controlled  as  it  could  be,  and  we  wanted  to  let 
it  alone,  and  so  we  fought  as  hard  as  we  could  fight.  But, 
in  spite  of  all  we  could  do  against  it,  Prohibition  carried, 
and  it  went  into  effect  in  Washington,  January  i.  We 
have  had  a  month  of  it  now.  And  how  has  it  worked 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     269 

out?  We  already  know  that  it  is  a  great  benefit  morally 
and  from  an  economic  standpoint.  Its  moral  benefit  has 
been  tremendous.  Seattle  had  260  saloons  and  we  had  an 
average  of  2,600  arrests  a  month  for  crimes  and  misde- 
meanors growing  out  of  liquor-drinking.  In  January  we 
had  only  400  arrests,  and  sixty  of  those  were  made  Jan- 
uary i,  and  were  the  results  of  hang-overs  from  the  old 
year.  That  in  itself  is  enough  to  convince  any  man  with 
a  conscience  that  Prohibition  is  necessary.  There  can  be 
no  true  economy  in  anything  that  is  immoral.  And  on 
top  of  that  great  moral  result  we  have  these  economic 
facts:  In  the  first  three  weeks  of  January  the  savings 
deposits  in  the  banks  of  Seattle  increased  15  pe*r  cent. 
There  was  not  a  grocery  store  in  Seattle  that  did  not 
show  an  increase  of  business  in  January  greater  than  ever 
known  in  any  month  before  in  all  the  history  of  the  city, 
except  in  holiday  time.  In  all  the  large  grocery  stores 
the  increase  was  immense.  In  addition  to  this,  every  dry- 
goods  store  in  Seattle  except  one,  and  that  one  I  have  no 
figures  from,  had  a  wonderful  increase  in  business.  Each 
store  reported  the  largest  business  ever  done  in  one  month, 
except  in  holiday  time.  I  wished  to  know  in  what  class 
of  goods  the  sales  increased  so  greatly,  and  so  I  sent  to 
all  the  grocery  and  dry-goods  stores  to  find  that  out.  And 
to  me  it  is  a  pitiful  thing — and  it  makes  me  sorry  that  we 
did  not  have  Prohibition  long  ago — that  the  increase  in 
sales  in  all  the  dry-goods  stores  was  in  wearing  apparel 
of  women  and  children  and  in  the  grocery  stores  the  in- 
crease was  made  up  chiefly  of  fruits  and  fancy  groceries. 
This  proves  that  it  is  the  women  and  children  who  suffer 
most  from  the  liquor  business,  and  it  is  the  women  and 
children  who  benefit  greatest  from  Prohibition.  Money 


270     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

that  went  formerly  over  the  bar  for  whisky  is  now  be- 
ing spent  for  clothing  for  the  women  and  children  and 
in  better  food  for  the  household.  It  is  just  like  this: 
When  you  close  the  saloons  the  money  that  formerly 
was  spent  there  remains  in  the  family  of  the  wage- 
earner,  and  his  wife  and  children  buy  shoes  and  clothing 
and  better  food  with  it.  Yes,  sir;  we  have  found  in 
Seattle  that  it  is  better  to  buy  shoes  than  booze.  The 
families  of  wage-earners  in  Seattle  are  going  to  have 
more  food  and  clothes  and  everything  else  than  they  had 
before. 

Hon.  Miles  Poindexter,  United  States  Senator 
from  Washington,  gave  me  for  use  his  estimate 
of  the  liquor  situation  in  his  State,  which  is  as 
follows : 

Various  influences  through  a  number  of  years  con- 
tributed to  the  movement  to  abolish  liquor  saloons  in  the 
State  of  Washington.  The  organized  fight  was  conducted 
largely — towards  the  conclusion  of  it,  especially — by  the 
Washington  Anti-Saloon  League.  The  time-worn  argu- 
ments were  made  against  the  entire  movement,  but  with 
constantly  lessening  effect.  The  fight  was  first  for  the 
extension  of  local  option  to  counties,  and,  when  this  was 
gained,  the  fight  was  extended  in  behalf  of  State-wide 
Prohibition.  This  came  to  an  acute  stage  in  the  general 
election  of  1914,  at  which  there  was  submitted  directly 
to  the  people,  under  our  State  initiative  law,  a  bill  abol- 
ishing the  saloon  and  prohibiting  the  manufacture  or  sale 
of  intoxicating  beverages  in  the  State.  The  influences 
which  led  up  to  this  opportunity  of  the  people  to  pass 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     271 

judgment  directly  upon  the  question  reach  back,  in  the 
gradual  extension  of  popular  government  and  the  power 
of  the  masses  of  the  people,  through  a  number  of  years, 
including  the  granting  of  suffrage  to  women  in  the  elec- 
tion of  1910  and  the  gradual  development  in  the  State 
of  direct  legislation,  including  the  initiative,  referendum, 
and  recall.  Actual  results  have  converted  thousands  of 
the  hard-headed  business  men  of  the  State  who  formerly 
voted  wet  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  enactment 
of  this  law  has  added  enormously  to  the  general  welfare 
and  happiness  of  our  people. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST  (Continued) 

IDAHO 

IN  February,  1915,  the  Legislature  of  Idaho 
adopted  statutory  Prohibition,  and  also  sent 
the  question  to  the  people  at  the  polls,  who 
at  the  November  election  in  1916  adopted  consti- 
tutional Prohibition  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 
Governor  Moses  Alexander  is  a  Hebrew  and 
a  most  efficient  champion  of  the  Prohibition  cause. 
I  wrote  him  for  his  views  of  the  situation  in  Idaho 
for  record  here  and   received  a   communication 
signed  by  him  with  the  M  for  Moses  two  inches 
tall  by  measurement,   and  the  letters  for  Alex- 
ander all  nearly  an  inch  high,  which  looked  very 
much  as  though  he  meant  what  he  said.    This  is 
his  message: 

I  am  a  Prohibitionist  on  account  of  believing  In  the 
brotherhood  of  mankind.  To  help  the  weak  is  our  duty,  and 
to  throw  our  arm  around  our  weak-willed  brother  and 
strengthen  him  to  withstand  the  temptation  of  the  demon 
Alcohol  and  build  him  up  so  that  he  may  walk  in  the 

272 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     273 

path  of  success.  I  am  a  business  man,  engaged  in  active 
business  at  several  points,  and  my  business  success  depends 
upon  the  number  of  my  patrons,  as  does  the  business  of 
every  enterprise,  and  if  a  man  consumes  his  earnings  over 
the  bar  every  legitimate  business  suffers,  for  he  then  has 
not  the  money  to  spend  for  food  and  clothing  which  are 
necessities,  and  certainly  not  for  any  of  the  luxuries  of 
life.  By  the  abolition  of  liquor  a  man  is  placed  in  posi- 
tion to  enjoy  the  money  he  earns,  and,  more  than  that, 
we  enjoy  the  abolition  of  crime  from  our  communities. 
When  Idaho  became  dry  in  1916,  there  were  some  who 
doubted  the  wisdom  of  the  enactment  on  account  of  busi- 
ness reasons,  but  there  is  none  now,  and  the  constitu- 
tional amendment  submitted  last  fall  received  an  over- 
whelming majority  in  every  county  in  the  State.  Prohi- 
bition like  every  other  good  thing  has  to  be  tasted  before 
it  is  liked,  and,  once  a  taste  is  acquired,  you  cannot  do 
without  it.  Idaho  is  in  the  Prohibition  line  now  and  for- 
ever, and  even  the  most  ardent  supporter  of  Alcohol  in 
the  past  has  changed  his  opinion.  It  is  no  longer  a  matter 
of  sentiment,  but  a  business  proposition  with  us;  we  can 
figure  out  the  benefits  to  the  community  in  dollars  and 
cents,  and  Idaho  is  becoming  richer  under  Prohibition 
than  it  has  been  in  the  past. 

A  personal  interview  with  Senator  Borah  of 
Idaho,  one  of  the  ablest  of  our  American  states- 
men, elicited  from  him  the  most  positive  testi- 
mony as  to  the  success  of  Prohibition  in  his  State, 
and  also  his  views  on  the  value  of  Prohibition  to 
the  laboring  man,  which  appear  in  another  chap- 
ter. 


274     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

IOWA 

In  February,  1915,  Iowa,  which  had  been  con- 
stitutionally dry  in  theory  but  wet  in  practice, 
adopted  Prohibition  in  fact. 

Hon.  Albert  B.  Cummins,  United  States  Sena- 
tor from  Iowa,  one  of  the  strongest  men  in  the 
Senate  and  country,  who  was  backed  by  his  State 
for  the  Republican  nomination  for  the  Presidency, 
in  a  conversation  I  had  with  him  testified  to  the 
success  of  Prohibition  in  his  State,  and  he  pre- 
dicted the  speedy  removal  of  the  liquor  traffic  in 
America.  He  gave  me  this  statement : 

The  one  thing  upon  which  the  best  minds  of  this  coun- 
try have  reached  a  definite  and  unalterable  conclusion 
is  that  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquor  as  a  beverage  shall 
cease.  Its  temperate  use  does  no  good  and  its  intemperate 
use  is  the  admitted  cause  of  more  suffering,  hardship, 
poverty,  disease,  and  crime  than  all  other  things  combined. 
Those  who  use  liquor  temperately,  even  though  they  are 
not  conscious  of  the  harm  it  does  them,  must  surrender 
their  privilege  in  order  that  society  may  avoid  the  awful 
consequences  of  the  intemperate  use  of  alcohol.  All  the 
influences  of  safety,  efficiency,  health,  happiness,  and  com- 
fort are  working  day  and  night  to  destroy  this  evil  thing. 
Mothers  and  wives  are  praying  for  the  day  that  will 
banish  it.  Children  who  have  a  right  to  the  enjoyment 
of  pure  minds  and  strong  bodies  are  demanding  its  con- 
demnation. The  hosts  of  morality  are  fighting  it,  and 
the  great  army  of  industry  is  determined  to  drive  it  from 
the  memory  of  mankind.  There  is  no  longer  a  doubt 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     275 

with  respect  to  the  outcome.  It  will  not  be  long  before 
a  generation  will  appear  that  will  look  with  as  much 
surprise  and  indignation  upon  the  taking  of  poison  in  the 
form  of  alcohol  as  this  generation  does  upon  the  taking 
of  poison  in  the  form  of  prussic  acid. 

Iowa  has  another  great  Senator  in  the  person 
of  Hon.  William  S.  Kenyon,  who  has  gained  na- 
tional fame  and  a  place  in  the  permanent  history 
of  the  country  by  the  introduction  of  the  Webb- 
Kenyon  Inter-State  Commerce  Amendment  Bill, 
forbidding  the  illicit  transportation  of  liquor  from 
wet  into  dry  territory. 

Iowa  rejected  Constitutional  Prohibition  by  the 
smallest  majority  in  October,  1917,  but  retains 
Statutory  Prohibition. 

FOUR  STATES 

On  election  day  in  November,  1916,  just  two 
years  from  the  time  the  first  Western  States  went 
dry,  another  group  of  four  Western  States  voted 
no-license,  thereby  securing  Constitutional  Prohibi- 
tion. They  were  Montana,  Nebraska,  South 
Dakota  and  Michigan.  They  went  into  the  col- 
umn by  a  non-partisan  vote,  Montana  and  Ne- 
braska going  for  Wilson,  South  Dakota  and 
Michigan  voting  for  Hughes.  That  one  day 
drove  out  of  business  114  breweries  and  6,528 
saloons  and  put  5,000,000  people  under  no-license 
rule.  It  cleared  the  liquor  traffic  from  a  geo- 


276     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

graphical  area  which  could  be  set  down  over 
Great  Britain,  Italy,  Holland,  Denmark,  Switzer- 
land and  European  Turkey,  and  there  would  be 
18,000  square  miles  left  over. 

MONTANA 

I  found  in  Hon.  S.  V.  Stewart,  Governor  of 
Montana,  a  tall,  strong,  handsome  man,  a  typical 
Westerner.  I  asked  him  how  he  felt  about  the 
prohibitory  law  in  his  State.  He  answered  he 
ought  to  feel  warmly  toward  it,  as  he  had  made 
the  race  for  the  Governorship  on  that  issue  the 
fall  before,  and  that  he  intended  to  do  all  in  his 
power  to  enforce  the  law.  The  Governor  gave 
me  a  copy  of  a  letter  he  had  written  to  Rev. 
Joseph  Pope,  head  of  the  dry  forces  in  Montana, 
dated  September  2,  1916,  which  is  as  follows: 

I  regard  Prohibition  as  a  purely  moral  question  and  one 
which  ought  not  to  be  involved  in  politics,  but  rather 
should  be  determined  by  each  voter  irrespective  of  political 
affiliations  and  solely  according  to  the  dictates  of  con- 
science. Nevertheless,  the  question  is  a  public  one,  and 
many  voters  feel  that  they  have  a  right  to  know  the 
attitude  of  public  men  on  all  public  questions.  In  view 
of  this  general  feeling  and  of  the  further  fact  that  the 
next  administration  may  be  called  upon  to  make  Prohi- 
bition effective,  I  take  this  occasion  to  say  to  you  that  I 
personally  believe  in  State-wide  Prohibition  and  expect 
to  vote  for  the  pending  measure  at  the  forthcoming  elec- 
tion. In  the  event  of  the  adoption  of  Prohibition  by  the 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     277 

people  I  promise  that  if  I  am  elected  Governor  of  Mon- 
tana I  will  do  all  in  my  power  to  enforce  the  law  and 
make  it  effective. 

In  his  message  to  the  Fifteenth  Legislative  As- 
sembly, on  the  second  day  of  January,  1917,  Gov- 
ernor Stewart  called  attention  to  the  necessity  of 
providing  revenue  to  take  the  place  of  that  which 
would  be  lost  to  the  State  when  Prohibition  be- 
comes effective.  He  concluded  his  discussion  of 
this  feature  thus : 

In  this  connection  I  do  not  want  to  be  understood  as 
deploring  the  situation;  rather  would  I  commend  the  peo- 
ple for  the  advanced  step  along  the  lines  of  civic  better- 
ment and  moral  refinement,  even  though  it  has  affected 
the  revenues  of  the  State. 

NEBRASKA 

I  sought  Hon.  Keith  Neville,  Governor  of  Ne- 
braska, to  get  from  him  the  no-license  situation 
in  his  State.  He  said,  "I  guess  I  am  not  the  man 
you  are  looking  for.  I  was  elected  Governor  on 
the  wet  ticket." 

"Your  State  accepted  Prohibition  so  heartily," 
I  said,  "I  supposed  that  it  chose  a  Governor 
friendly  to  the  proposition." 

He  said  to  me,  "Though  elected  on  a  wet  plat- 
form, I  intend  to  keep  my  oath  and  enforce  the 
law  the  best  I  can."  "It  is  a  free  country,  and 


278     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

you  have  a  right  to  your  opinion,"  I  rejoined, 
"and  you  are  no  doubt  honest  in  it.  I  am  not  so 
narrow  that  I  will  not  listen  to  the  advocates  of 
all  sides  of  the  question.  But  my  opinion  is  at 
right  angles  to  yours  on  the  subject,  and  you  were 
correct  in  the  notion  that  you  are  not  the  man  I 
was  seeking  for  testimony  as  to  the  blessing  of 
State-wide  Prohibition." 

If  the  Governor  will  rigidly  enforce  the  law, 
its  benefits  will  be  so  apparent  that  they  will  prob- 
ably convert  him,  as  they  have  done  hundreds  of 
thousands — yes,  millions — of  those  who  formerly 
advocated  license.  For  our  purpose  we  will  have 
to  ask  Nebraska  to  let  her  illustrious  citizen, 
William  Jennings  Bryan,  speak  for  her  on  the 
value  of  abstinence  and  State  and  Nation-wide 
Prohibition. 

Governor  Neville  is  the  only  one  of  the  Gov- 
ernors of  dry  States  whom  I  interviewed  who  was 
not  an  enthusiastic  friend  of  Prohibition.  It  may 
be  there  are  other  liquor  Governors  of  dry  States. 
I  have  heard  of  at  least  one  other,  the  head  of  a 
great  commonwealth  in  the  South,  who  got  his 
State  into  a  pile  of  trouble  and  got  into  a  peck  of 
trouble  himself. 


SOUTH   DAKOTA 

I  was  greatlv  pleased  with  my  interview  with 
Governor  Peter   Norbeck  of  South  Dakota,    a 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     279 

ruddy-faced,  hardy,  level-headed,  big-hearted  man 
of  Scandinavian  descent,  on  the  return  to  consti- 
tutional Prohibition  in  his  State..  In  compliance 
with  my  request,  he  furnished  me  the  following: 

I  am  a  native  of  this  State  and  have  for  the  second  time 
seen  the  people  adopt  State-wide  Prohibition.  Twenty- 
seven  years  ago,  when  the  State  was  admitted  to  the 
Union,  the  people  adopted  State-wide  Prohibition,  only 
to  repeal  it  seven  years  later — after  an  unsuccessful  effort 
to  enforce  it,  due  to  the  fact  that  this  State  has  practically 
no  authority  in  the  enforcement  of  laws.  In  the  locali- 
ties where  Prohibition  was  popular  the  law  was  enforced. 
In  the  mining  sections  and  other  parts  of  the  State  where 
the  law  was  unpopular,  it  was  openly  violated.  Public 
bars  were  run  seven  days  in  the  week,  night  and  day, 
without  any  restriction  except  in  so  far  as  the  city  council 
saw  fit  to  regulate  it.  This  regulation  consisted  of  per- 
mitting them  to  run  in  violation  of  the  law  and  a  fine 
at  regular  intervals,  which  fine  sometimes  went  into  the 
city  treasury  and  sometimes  into  the  pockets  of  the  col- 
lectors. In  one  case  the  acting  mayor  of  the  town  col- 
lected the  fine  and  made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  he  kept 
the  money  himself.  Next  we  tried  local  option,  the  peo- 
ple voting  on  the  question  of  license  at  annual  elections. 
After  twenty  years  of  this,  about  two-thirds  of  the  towns 
became  dry  with  a  pretty  good  enforcement  in  the  dry 
territory,  but  that  part  of  the  State  which  violated  the 
Prohibition  law  is  still  permitting  the  sale  under  the  local 
option  law.  A  constitutional  amendment  was  submitted 
by  the  legislature  two  years  ago  and  was  adopted  in 
November  last. 


280    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Governor  Norbeck  sent  me  a  copy  of  his  in- 
augural address  in  a  nicely  bound  booklet  with 
the  section  on  Prohibition  marked,  in  which  he 
calls  for  the  passage  of  rigid  enforcement  meas- 
ures among  them,  one  to  empower  the  Attorney- 
General  in  cooperation  with  the  Governor  to  in- 
stitute prosecutions  and  to  remove  sheriffs  and 
State  Attorneys  for  non-enforcement  of  the  law. 

MICHIGAN 

Michigan  was  the  fourth  State  that  adopted 
Prohibition  that  November  day,  bringing  with  it 
into  the  column  Detroit,  with  its  650,000  popula- 
tion, the  largest  dry  city  in  the  Western  Hemi- 
sphere; Toronto,  Canada,  coming  next  with  its 
360,000. 

Ex-Governor  Woodb ridge  N.  Ferris,  an  effi- 
cient leader  against  the  liquor  interests,  wrote  me 
the  following  about  the  situation : 

I  came  to  Michigan  May  16,  1884.  There  was  hardly 
a  county  in  Michigan  that  was  dry  at  that  time.  The 
city  of  Big  Rapids,  having  a  population  of  five  thousand, 
had  thirty-three  saloons  and  two  houses  of  ill-fame.  The 
number  of  saloons  diminished  under  a  change  in  public 
opinion.  The  houses  of  ill-fame  did  not  last  long  after 
1884.  From  that  day  to  this  public  sentiment  has  changed 
to  the  attitude  of  the  dry.  Nearly  half  the  number  of 
counties  in  the  State  were  dry  under  local  option  when 
it  held  its  election  last  November.  In  November  the 
State  voted  dry  by  a  majority  of  fifty  or  sixty  thousand. 
Our  legislators  have  hesitated  about  whether  this  meant 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST    281 

that  Michigan  was  really  dry,  or  half  dry,  or  spasmod- 
ically dry.  The  action  of  Congress,  however,  seems  to 
have  strengthened  our  weak  brothers  at  Lansing.  The 
results  are  going  to  work  out  all  right,  no  question  at 
all  about  that.  The  whole  nation  will  become  dry  unless 
the  "drys"  themselves  make  some  extraordinary  blunders. 

Hon.  William  Alden  Smith,  United  States  Sen- 
ator from  Michigan,  selected  for  me  an  extract 
from  his  speech  on  the  Dry  District  of  Columbia 
Bill,  as  an  expression  of  his  views  on  the  general 
situation.  It  is  this : 

And  why  should  not  the  Capital  of  the  Nation  exalt 
this  principle  of  morality  and  good  conduct  ?  Why  should 
not  the  National  Government  within  that  part  of  the 
public  domain  which  it  absolutely  controls  exalt  every 
civic  and  moral  virtue  and  make  of  this  Federal  City 
the  highest  ideal  of  our  national  hopes  and  aspirations? 
I  am  glad  to  be  privileged  to  vote  in  favor  of  the  passage 
of  this  bill  and  give  my  approval  to  the  principles  here 
involved.  If  the  National  Government,  with  absolute 
authority  in  this  District,  ten  miles  square,  is  unable  to 
enforce  the  law  strictly  and  impartially,  the  sooner  the 
country  understands  the  weakness  of  our  system  of  govern- 
ment the  better  it  will  be  for  our  citizenship.  I  expect 
this  law  to  pass;  I  expect  it  to  be  helpful  to  the  cause 
of  temperance  everywhere,  and  I  am  glad  to  stand  in 
my  place  as  its  advocate  and  defender. 

Hon.  Charles  E.  Townsend,  United  States  Sen- 
ator from  Michigan,  assured  me  of  his  gratifica- 
tion at  the  no-license  victories  in  his  State  and  in 
the  country  at  large. 


282     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Governor  Sleeper  of  Michigan  has  written  me 
that  he  was  expecting  the  Legislature  to  enact 
such  workable  laws  as  would  enable  him  success- 
fully to  enforce  the  Prohibition  provision  the  peo- 
ple had  voted  into  the  constitution. 

INDIANA 

These  four  made  twenty-three  dry  States.  It 
was  expected  that  Utah  would  be  the  twenty- 
fourth,  but  Indiana  beat  her  to  the  goal  and  early 
in  the  year  1917  adopted  statutory  Prohibition. 

Governor  Goodrich  of  Indiana,  a  vigorous 
statesman  and  fearless  foe  of  the  liquor  traffic, 
told  me  he  had  made  his  race  with  a  frank  decla- 
ration of  his  hostility  to  the  saloon  and  his  de- 
termination if  elected  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  free 
the  people  from  its  curse.  He  whispered  in  my 
ear  in  a  confidential  manner,  uWait  and  see  what 
will  happen  at  the  session  of  the  Legislature."  I 
listened  and  heard. 

Besides  the  powerful  anti-saloon  organizations 
that  led  in  the  conflict,  Ex-Governor  Frank 
Hanly,  who  while  Governor  and  since  as  the 
head  of  the  Flying  Squadron  has  been  such  a  foe 
of  rum,  rendered  invaluable  assistance  in  the  cam- 
paign. 

It  is  with  peculiar  personal  pride  and  gratitude 
that  I  record  Indiana's  action,  as  I  am  a  Hoosier, 
proud  of  the  fact,  and  more  so  since  my  native 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     283 

State  has  gone  dry.  This  action  seems  like  a 
miracle,  for  I  remember  when  only  a  few  years 
ago  both  political  parties  were  owned  bag  and 
baggage  by  the  brewers,  distillers  and  saloon- 
keepers, when  good  conscientious  Christian  states- 
men turned  pale  as  death  with  fear  and  speech- 
less as  the  grave,  when  the  liquor  question  was 
raised.  They  had  to  keep  their  mouths  shut  or 
they  could  not  be  elected  to  any  office,  not  even 
to  that  of  "dog-pelter"  in  the  town.  But  the 
change  in  the  Hoosier  State  only  measures  the 
miracle  of  the  movement  in  the  whole  country. 

UTAH 

Just  after  Indiana,  Utah  came  in  under  the 
string  by  the  adoption  of  statutory  Prohibition, 
making  the  twenty-fifth,  or  one  more  than  a  ma- 
jority of  the  States  adopting  Prohibition. 

I  saw  Governor  Bamberger  at  a  conference. 
It  had  been  intimated  that  he  was  not  as  radical 
on  the  temperance  question  as  some.  But  he  said 
in  the  canvass  in  the  fall  that  if  elected  and  the 
Legislature  were  to  pass  a  prohibitory  law  he 
would  not  only  sign  the  bill  but  would  put  every 
ounce  of  strength  he  had,  personal  and  official,  to 
enforce  the  law.  I  saw  by  the  look  of  sincerity 
and  deep  determination  in  his  face  that  he  meant 
what  he  said;  and  so  he  did,  as  will  be  seen  from 
the  following  communication  I  received  from  him 
after  he  got  back  home : 


284     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

The  Prohibition  law  has  only  just  gone  into  effect  in 
Utah,  and  it  is  too  soon  to  tell  from  experience  just  how 
the  law  will  work  out.  However,  I  believe  there  is  no 
law  on  the  statute  books  of  this  or  any  other  State  be- 
hind which  there  is  such  general  public  approval.  Every 
State  official  and  every  county  official  in  Utah  is  in  close 
sympathy  with  the  law  and  is  pledged  to  its  rigid  en- 
forcement. I  believe  they  will  be  aided  by  public-spirited 
citizens  throughout  the  State.  I  feel  that  there  will  be 
very  few  to  violate  this  law,  and  that  these  will  be  dealt 
with  promptly  and  effectively.  We  believe  that  our  Pro- 
hibition law  is  one  of  the  best  in  the  United  States.  While 
some  few  slight  amendments  are  undoubtedly  necessary, 
the  law  will  certainly  make  the  state  "bone-dry."  In  the 
practical  operation  of  the  law,  slight  defects  not  now 
discernible  will  undoubtedly  be  discovered  and  these  will 
be  straightened  out  by  the  next  legislature.  There  seems 
to  be  a  splendid  spirit  toward  the  observance  of  this  law 
by  all  classes  of  people  within  the  State,  and  we  expect 
assistance  from  the  Federal  Government  in  keeping  liquor 
outside  of  the  borders  of  our  State.  We  believe  that 
Prohibition  will  give  us  a  happier  and  more  prosperous 
people;  that  it  will  make  many  homes  cheerful;  that  it 
will  reclaim  for  society  many  persons  now  almost  derelicts, 
will  lessen  the  population  of  our  penal  institutions  and 
insane  asylums,  increase  our  bank  deposits,  and  give  to 
many  women  and  children  a  happiness  they  have  never 
known  before. 

NEW  HAMPSHIRE 

The  Legislature  of  New  Hampshire  at  its  ses- 
sion in  1917  adopted  statutory  Prohibition,  put- 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     285 

ting  the  State  back  into  the  no-license  column, 
from  which  it  had  fallen. 

United  States  Senator  Gallinger  of  New  Hamp- 
shire is  an  especially  conspicuous  figure  in  this 
fight.  The  Senator  is  an  old  man  with  white  hair 
and  mustache,  portly,  genial,  witty,  with  fine  per- 
sonal presence.  I  said  to  him,  "You  are  an  old 
'Prohibition  crank/  and  that  is  why  I  have  come 
to  see  you  and  ask  a  favor  of  you.  For  a  gen- 
eration I  have  been  reading  what  you  have  said 
in  the  papers  and  in  the  halls  of  Congress  against 
the  liquor  traffic,  and  I  have  been  thrilled  by 
what  you  have  said  no  less  than  I  have  been  proud 
of  your  moral  courage  in  standing  up  in  the 
Capitol  building  almost  alone  and  fighting  King 
Alcohol.  I  have  come  to  ask  that  you  will  give 
me  something  on  Prohibition  in  your  State,  in  the 
Nation,  and  above  all  your  personal  relationship 
to  it.  Words  from  a  man  like  you  will  make 
mighty  good  and  helpful  reading  at  this  eventful, 
tragical  time  when  King  Alcohol  is  being  de- 
throned and  destroyed."  He  gave  me  the  fol- 
lowing : 

The  present  awakening  on  the  subject  of  State  and 
National  Prohibition,  is  especially  gratifying  to  those  of 
us  who  gave  encouragement  and  support  to  the  cause  of 
temperance  in  the  days  when  it  was  less  popular  than 
now.  For  myself,  I  have  been  a  strong  advocate  of  tem- 
perance from  early  boyhood,  being  one  of  a  family  of 
twelve  children,  no  one  of  whom  became  addicted  to  the 

NOTE. — Senator  Gallinger,  now  deceased 


286     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

use  of  strong  drink.  The  fact  that  out  of  that  number 
nine  of  the  family  still  live  in  good  health,  the  oldest 
being  eighty-seven  and  the  youngest  sixty,  would  seem  to 
justify  the  claim  that  a  temperate  life  has  much  to  do 
with  good  health  and  longevity.  In  my  younger  days 
I  took  great  interest  in  temperance  societies,  such  as  the 
Sons  of  Temperance  and  similar  organizations,  and  dur- 
ing my  public  service  it  has  been  my  pleasure  to  advocate 
the  cause  of  temperance  and  Prohibition,  both  on  the  pub- 
lic platform  and  in  the  halls  of  the  two  houses  of  Congress. 
I  recall  with  special  interest  the  fact  that  more  tKan  fifty 
years  ago,  at  a  time  when  I  was  engaged  in  the  practice 
of  medicine,  I  delivered  an  address  in  some  of  the  lead- 
ing cities  and  towns  of  New  Hampshire  on  the  subject  of 
"The  Physical  Effects  of  Alcohol,"  and  it  is  a  matter  of 
gratification  to  me  that  the  leading  physicians  and  scien- 
tists of  the  country  have  reached  the  conclusions  that  I 
then  held  and  advocated.  The  wave  of  Prohibition, 
which  for  the  past  two  years  has  been  sweeping  over  the 
country  with  irresistible  force,  not  only  foreshadows  the 
doom  of  the  saloon,  but  also  presages  the  day  when  the 
claims  of  the  men  who  have  advocated  temperance  as  be- 
ing essential  to  the  well-being  of  the  individual  and  the 
community  will  be  fully  justified  and  universally  acknowl- 
edged. 

Naturally  I  have  taken  a  deep  interest  in  the  cause  of 
temperance  in  the  State  of  New  Hampshire,  where  for 
twenty-five  years  I  practiced  medicine,  and  for  the  last 
thirty  years  have  been  permitted  to  represent  the  State 
in  both  houses  of  Congress  at  Washington.  For  forty 
years  or  thereabouts  New  Hampshire  had  a  prohibitory 
law,  which  was  very  imperfectly  enforced,  giving  the 


PROHIBITION  IN  THE  WEST     287 

opponents  of  the  law  an  opportunity  to  declare  that  it 
was  a  failure  and  ought  to  be  repealed.  The  agitation 
along  that  line  was  persistent,  and  was  actively  aided  by 
the  saloon  interests  and  financed  by  the  money  of  the 
brewers,  distillers  and  wholesale  dealers  in  the  large  cities 
of  the  country.  The  result  was  that  the  prohibitory  law 
was  broken  down,  and  a  local  option  law  put  in  its  place, 
which  law  remained  on  the  statute  books  for  about  fifteen 
years.  Dissatisfied  with  the  workings  of  the  law,  the 
Anti-Saloon  League,  the  churches,  the  Women's  Chris- 
tian Temperance  Union,  and  the  men  and  women  of  the 
State  who  believed  that  the  licensing  of  the  sale  of  liquor 
was  an  immorality,  marshaled  their  forces,  and  at  the  last 
session  of  the  Legislature  in  1917  repealed  the  license  law 
and  enacted  a  strong  and  efficient  prohibitory  law  in  its 
stead.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  awaken- 
ing conscience  of  our  people,  and  the  determination  on 
their  part  to  see  that  the  law  is  strictly  enforced,  will 
secure  for  our  State  a  better  condition  of  things  than  has 
existed  at  any  period  since  the  organization  of  the  State 
Government.  The  people  of  New  Hampshire  are  so 
aroused  to  the  importance  of  the  movement  that  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  a  large  majority  of  them  believe  in  Na- 
tional Prohibition,  and  stand  ready  to  do  their  part  toward 
bringing  about  that  much-desired  consummation.  What- 
ever form  the  contest  may  assume  in  the  future,  I  feel 
sure  that  New  Hampshire,  one  of  the  original  thirteen 
States,  will  be  in  the  fore-front,  doing  valiant  battle  for 
the  cause  of  humanity  and  temperance. 

NEW   MEXICO 

New  Mexico  adopted  constitutional  prohibition 
November  6,  1917. 


288    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

FOUR   NEW   DRY   STATES 

On  November  5,  1918,  Florida,  Ohio,  Nevada 
and  Wyoming,  voted  for  State-wide  prohibition. 

ALASKA 

In  1916  the  people  of  Alaska  voted  for  no- 
license  by  an  overwhelming  majority  and  the  Na- 
tional Congress  ratified  and  fortified  their  action. 

PORTO   RICO 

On  June  16,  1917,  Porto  Rico  voted  for  Pro- 
hibition by  a  majority  of  37,000.  It  was  the 
first  of  the  Latin  nations  to  go  dry.  The  govern- 
ment, the  press,  the  leaders  were  reported  to  be 
against  prohibition,  everybody  but  the  people, 
who  concluded  to  adopt  it.  In  the  campaign 
circulars  the  wets  had  a  bottle  at  the  top  with 
this  instruction  written  under  it:  "This  is  the  way 
to  vote  in  order  to  save  our  island  from  poverty." 
The  drys  had  a  cocoanut  as  their  emblem,  on  ac- 
count of  the  sweet,  non-alcoholic,  nutritious  milk 
it  contained,  with  this  instruction  written  under 
it:  "This  is  the  way  to  vote.  Our  children  would 
be  saved  from  danger."  The  voters  took  the 
cocoanut  in  their  hand  and  with  it  smashed  the 
bottle  into  a  thousand  pieces. 

In  1918,  Congress  gave  Hawaii  war  pro- 
hibition. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
BRYAN  CHAMPIONS  PROHIBITION 

PERHAPS  the  most  powerful  individual  enemy  of 
the  liquor  traffic  in  America  in  recent  years  has 
been  William  Jennings  Bryan. 

To  those  who  had  long  witnessed  the  domination  of 
the  Democratic  Party,  and  the  Republican  Party  as  well, 
by  the  liquor  people,  it  seemed  almost  incredible  that  the 
acknowledged  head  of  the  Democratic  Party  for  nearly 
twenty  years,  who  had  been  three  times  its  candidate 
for  the  Presidency  and  who  had  thrown  the  Presidency 
to  Woodrow  Wilson,  should  publicly  proclaim  himself 
a  total  abstainer;  and  more  incredible  it  would  seem  that 
as  Secretary  of  State  in  Mr.  Wilson's  Cabinet  he  should 
have  given  a  State  dinner  without  intoxicating  liquors, 
and  that  in  their  place  he  should  have  offered  his  distin- 
guished guests  only  unfermented  grape  juice  to  drink, 
stating  at  the  time  that  his  wife  and  he  were  opposed 
to  the  use  of  intoxicants  from  principle,  and  that  they 
did  not  wish  to  offer  it  to  others. 

The  brewers,  distillers,  saloon-keepers  and  their 
apologists  set  up  derisive  laughter  at  such  a  "silly" 
exhibition,  the  press  as  a  rule  poured  out  ridicule,  and 
the  cartoonists  had  no  end  of  fun  at  the  expense  of  the 
one  they  counted  a  fanatic.  But  the  millions  of  level- 
headed, determined  enemies  of  the  drink  traffic,  including 

289 


29o    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

the  church  members,  generally  commended  his  action,  and 
congratulated  him  on  his  moral  heroism. 

While  Secretary  of  State,  on  April  15,  1915,  in  Phila- 
delphia, he  addressed  one  of  the  most  significant 
temperance  audiences  ever  assembled  in  the  history  of 
the  world;  nothing  approaching  it  had  ever  been  seen 
in  this  country.  It  was  held  in  the  Billy  Sunday  Taber- 
nacle. So  magical  was  the  address  on  total  abstinence 
that  12,000  men,  amid  the  wildest  enthusiasm  and 
deepest  determination,  arose  to  their  feet  and  made  a 
pledge  of  total  abstinence  from  strong  drink. 

In  the  Anti-Saloon  campaign  in  Ohio,  in  the  autumn 
of  1915,  Mr.  Bryan  made  sixty  addresses  which  were 
condensed  into  one  and  presented  in  the  United  States 
Senate  by  Morris  Sheppard,  January  25,  1916,  as 
document  No.  254,  and  ordered  to  be  printed. 

In  December,  1916,  an  epoch  occurred  in  Mr.  Bryan's 
life  and  in  the  better  life  of  the  nation  when  he  demanded 
that  the  Democrats  adopt  Prohibition  as  a  party  measure. 
That  demand  was  on  the  occasion  of  a  banquet  given 
in  his  honor  on  December  6,  1916,  at  the  Hotel  La 
Fayette,  in  Washington,  by  more  than  300  Democrats, 
United  States  Senators,  members  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives and  others,  including  many  of  national 
prominence.  President  Wilson,  who  was  unable  to  be 
present  at  the  meeting,  sent  a  letter  which  was  read 
by  the  toastmaster  and  was  as  follows: 

"Will  you  not  be  kind  enough  to  convey  my  very  cordial 
greetings  to  Mr.  Bryan  and  to  those  who  are  assembled 
to  do  him  honor?  In  the  recent  campaign  no  one  rendered 
more  unselfish  service  than  Mr.  Bryan,  and  I  am  happy 
to  know  that  this  dinner  expresses  the  genuine  admiration 


BRYAN  CHAMPIONS  PROHIBITION  291 

of  all  Democrats  for  him.  May  I  not  by  this  means 
convey  to  him  my  warmest  congratulations  and  best 
wishes  for  his  continued  health  and  happiness?" 

After  covering  a  number  of  important  subjects  in  his 
advice  to  his  party,  including  the  espousal  of  woman 
suffrage,  Mr.  Bryan  made  the  climax  of  his  speech  on 
the  necessity  of  opposing  the  rum  traffic  on  the  grounds 
of  moral  conviction  and  political  expediency  and  of 
saving  the  party  from  being  "buried  in  a  drunkard's 
grave. "  And  the  subsequent  action  of  Congress  with  its 
more  than  two-thirds  dry  majority  indicated  that  many 
Democratic  and  Republican  members  of  that  body  as  well 
shared  Mr.  Bryan's  opinion  and  followed  his  advice  on 
the  subject. 

At  the  world-wide  Conference  at  Columbus,  November, 
1918,  Mr.  Bryan  said  that  one  week  contained  two  of 
the  most  important  victories  in  human  history,  one  the 
destruction  of  the  Hun,  the  liquor  traffic,  on  November 
5th  and  the  other  the  smashing  of  the  Hun  of  monarchy 
by  the  armistice  on  November  nth.  He  predicted  that 
forty-four  states  would  ratify  the  Prohibition  Amend- 
ment within  thirteen  months  of  the  time  the  question 
was  handed  down  to  them,  and  that  within  five  years 
the  ratification  would  be  unanimous. 

REV.   DOCTOR  DAVID  JAMES   BURRELL 

In  an  interview  with  Rev.  Doctor  David  James 
Burrell,  pastor  of  the  Marble  Collegiate  Church,  New 
York  City,  who  has  represented  everything  that  is  ablest 
and  best  in  the  American  pulpit  for  a  half  century,  I 
asked  him  to  state  as  briefly  as  possible  the  results  of 


292    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

his  observation  of  and  participation  in  the  Temperance 
Movement  for  the  past  fifty  years. 

He  said:  "It  was  during  my  first  pastorate  in  Dubuque, 
Iowa,  that  the  campaign  began  for  Prohibition  in  that 
State.  My  congregation  was  divided  in  sentiment  and 
regarding  discretion  as  the  better  part  of  valor,  I,  for 
a  while,  held  my  peace  and  kept  out  of  it.  But  when 
George  Haddock  of  Sioux  City  was  waylaid  one  night 
after  preaching  a  temperance  sermon,  and  stabbed  to 
death,  my  blood  took  fire  and  my  coat  came  off.  It 
was  not  long  before  I  had  the  distinction  of  being  burned 
in  effigy  by  some  of  my  fellow  citizens;  an  honor  which 
I  esteem  to-day  above  all  demilunar  fardels.  Since  then 
my  interest  in  the  temperance  cause  has  never  flagged. 
You  ask  for  my  conclusions  in  brief:  here  they  are: 

"First,  the  liquor  traffic  can  not  be  regulated.  No 
restriction  statute  has  ever  been  enacted  which  the  rum 
dealer  has  not  defiantly  violated.  He  is  constitutionally 
a  law-breaker  and  must  be  dealt  with  that  way. 

"Second,  Prohibition  does  prohibit  and  nothing  else 
will.  Experience  proves  that  laws  prohibiting  the  sale 
and  use  of  intoxicating  drinks  are  as  easily  enforceable 
and  as  practically  effective  as  laws  prohibiting  any  other 
vice. 

"Third,  a  prohibitory  law  in  order  to  be  effective  must 
cover  the  whole  field.  They  say  that  'beer  doesn't 
intoxicate/  Tell  that  to  the  marines.  Beer  makes  more 
drunkards  than  whisky.  And  what's  more,  it  involves 
a  larger  industrial  drain.  This  is  where  our  Food 
Commissioners  are  playing  a  screaming  farce;  shutting 
the  distilleries  and  leaving  the  breweries  wide  open. 
What's  the  use?  America  has  the  opportunity  of  leading 
the  world  in  the  temperance  reform  and  is  allowing  it 
to  go  by  default.  Who's  to  blame?  Let  the  Church 
speak  up.  What  does  she  propose  to  do  about  it?" 


CHAPTER  XVI 
FEDERAL  LEGISLATION 

THE  members  of  both  Houses  of  Congress 
who  have  dragged  out  the  doctrine  of 
States'  Rights  to  use  as  a  weapon  against 
Federal  action  on  Prohibition  in  the  District  and 
Nation  have  shown  their  ignorance  of  the  history 
of  Federal  action  on  the  subject. 

The  first  Congress  of  the  United  States,  held 
in  New  York,  at  its  second  session  celebrated  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  on  July  4,  1789,  by 
passing  a  bill  which  included  the  following  duty 
on  intoxicating  liquors  imported;  on  distilled  spir- 
its of  Jamaica  proof,  10  cents  per  gallon;  on 
other  distilled  spirits,  8  cents;  on  Madeira  wine, 
1 8  cents;  on  other  wines,  10  cents;  on  every  gallon 
of  beer,  ale  or  porter  in  casks,  5  cents;  in  bottles, 
20  cents  a  dozen.  And  the  third  Congress,  held 
in  Philadelphia,  passed  an  act,  June  5,  1794, 
which  actually  licensed  men  to  sell  liquor  by  re- 
tail. And  Congress  kept  its  hand  on  the  liquor 
business  till  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  when 
Uncle  Sam  went  into  partnership  with  it. 

It  was  a  long  time  after  the  people  had  voted 
293 


294     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

the  saloon  out  of  the  towns,  counties  and  States 
before  there  was  any  reflection  of  that  action  at 
Washington.  The  reason  was  that  King  Alcohol 
had  such  a  powerful  grip  on  the  throat  of  Uncle 
Sam  that  he  could  not  squeal.  Little  by  little  that 
grip  was  relaxed.  Drink  was  taken  away  from 
the  army  and  navy,  including  the  wine  mess,  the 
Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Homes,  the  Government 
buildings,  the  Indian  reservations,  the  Canal 
Zone,  etc. 

WEBB-KENYON  BILL 

On  February  8,  1913,  the  Webb-Kenyon  Inter- 
state Commerce  Amendment  Bill  was  passed  in 
the  House  and  the  next  day  by  the  Senate.  Up 
to  that  time  this  was  the  most  staggering  blow 
which  the  liquor  traffic  had  ever  received  since 
the  foundation  of  the  Government.  It  was  then 
that  the  people  took  possession  of  their  own  Gov- 
ernment, and  took  one  of  the  hands  of  King  Al- 
cohol from  the  throat  of  Uncle  Sam,  and  gave 
him  more  air  to  breathe  and  voice  to  speak. 

There  had  been  a  halt  in  Prohibition  for  five 
years,  between  1907  and  1912,  caused  by  the  nul- 
lification of  the  State  prohibitory  laws  by  the  mis- 
use of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Law  in  taking 
liquors  illegally  from  wet  into  dry  territory.  By 
this  law  the  Federal  Government  made  it  impos- 
sible properly  to  enforce  the  State  prohibitory 
laws.  The  Webb-Kenyon  Bill  was  designed  to 


FEDERAL  LEGISLATION          295 

put  an  end  to  that  Federal  nullification  of  the 
State  laws. 

Senator  Kenyon  in  the  advocacy  of  the  bill 
said  among  other  things,  "The  partnership  of  the 
Federal  Government  with  the  boot-legger  ought 
to  be  dissolved.  The  assistance  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  maintaining  'holes  in  the  walls'  and 
'speak-easies'  ought  to  cease.  That  is  the  pur- 
pose of  this  bill.  It  never  was  intended  by  the 
Constitution,  in  conferring  upon  Congress  the  ex- 
clusive power  to  regulate  interstate  commerce,  to 
take  away  from  the  various  States  the  right  to 
make  reasonable  laws  concerning  the  health,  life 
and  safety  of  their  citizens,  even  though  such 
legislation  might  indirectly  affect  foreign  or  inter* 
state  commerce/' 

The  Webb-Kenyon  Bill,  passed  early  in  Febru- 
ary, was  held  by  President  Taft  till  about  the 
close  of  the  session  and  then  returned  with  his 
veto,  on  the  ground  of  unconstitutionality.  It 
was  instantly  passed  over  his  veto  by  the  two- 
thirds  majority  necessary  in  both  Houses,  and  be- 
came a  law,  which  aided  the  States  in  enforcing 
their  no-license  laws,  and  encouraged  new  States 
to  adopt  Prohibition.  That  bill  at  one  stroke 
killed  one-third  of  all  the  liquor  business  of  the 
country.  By  this  bill  the  people  took  the  other 
hand  from  the  throat  of  Uncle  Sam,  removed 
from  him  the  white  apron  of  the  barkeeper  which 
he  had  worn  so  long,  and  set  him  free,  the  real 


296     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

ruler  of  the  nation  instead  of  King  Alcohol,  de- 
throned. 

THE  YEAR  1917 

The  year  of  our  Lord  1917  has  been  one  of 
the  most  eventful  periods  in  the  moral  history  of 
the  world.  On  January  8  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  declared  the  Webb-Kenyon 
Law  constitutional. 

Chief  Justice  White  in  announcing  the  decision 
said:  "The  all-reaching  power  of  Government 
over  liquor  is  settled.  There  was  no  intention 
of  Congress  to  forbid  individual  use  of  liquor. 
The  purpose  of  this  act  was  to  cut  out  by  the 
roots  the  practice  of  permitting  violation  of  State 
liquor  laws.  We  can  have  no  doubt  that  Con- 
gress has  completely  authority  to  prevent  the  par- 
alyzing of  State  authority.  Congress  exerted  a 
power  to  coordinate  the  National  with  the  State 
authority." 

Mr.  Wayne  B.  Wheeler,  general  counsel  for 
the  Anti-Saloon  League,  who  led  the  legal  fight 
which  resulted  in  this  Supreme  Court  decision,  in 
an  address  at  the  Central  Branch  of  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association  of  Brooklyn  thus 
expressed  the  significance  of  this  decision:  "The 
most  conservative  agency  in  American  Government 
decided  that  the  people  of  a  given  community 
have  the  inherent  right  to  better  their  condition 
without  outside  interference,  and  therefore  held 


FEDERAL  LEGISLATION          297 

that  alcohol  could  not  be  shipped  into  a  State 
where  the  people  of  that  State  opposed  it.  It 
held,  second,  that  the  health  and  morals  of  a 
people  are  essential  to  the  life  of  a  Government, 
and  recognized  that  alcohol  was  therefore  an  en- 
emy to  the  Government.  The  third  point  was 
the  most  startling  of  all.  The  court  decided  that 
there  were  no  constitutional  guarantees  which  ap- 
plied to  the  liquor  business.  In  other  words,  the 
liquor  business  had  no  right  to  exist  at  all,  and 
if  it  did  exist  it  was  through  privilege,  which 
could  be  withdrawn  by  the  people  at  any  time." 

Mr.  Wheeler,  when  the  decision  was  rendered, 
turned  to  the  attorneys  on  the  other  side  and 
said,  "We  have  beaten  you  wholesale,  retail  and 
cocktail.'* 

I  asked  Congressman  Webb  for  a  line  on  this 
Inter-state  Commerce  Amendment  bill,  which  he 
fathered  in  the  House,  and  he  gave  me  the  fol- 
lowing : 

"Prior  to  the  enactment  of  the  Webb-Kenyon 
Law,  the  laws  of  the  States,  passed  to  regulate 
and  curb  the  liquor  traffic,  were  practically  nulli- 
fied by  shipments  of  liquor  in  original  packages 
from  other  States.  Under  this  law  such  ship- 
ments became  subject  to  the  State  regulations  as 
soon  as  it  came  into  the  State.  In  this  fight  which 
I  made  for  the  enactment  of  the  Webb-Kenyon 
Law,  I  realized  that  we  had  arrayed  against  us 
the  combined  liquor  interests  of  the  country  and 


298    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

all  the  anti-Prohibition  sentiment.  The  complete 
victory  did  not  come,  however,  until  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  handed  down  its 
opinion  this  year  upholding  its  constitutionality.1* 

DISTRICT  OF  COLUMBIA  DRY 

Knowing  the  strong  fight  Congressman  Webb 
had  put  up  to  drive  the  saloons  out  of  the  capital 
of  the  nation,  I  asked  him  about  the  District  Pro- 
hibition Bill.  He  said: 

"The  fight  for  Prohibition  within  the  District 
of  Columbia  has  been  waged  in  Congress  for  a 
number  of  years.  About  five  years  ago  I  led  the 
fight  in  the  House  of  Representatives  which  re- 
sulted in  reducing  the  number  of  barrooms  from 
about  six  hundred  to  three  hundred.  A  complete 
victory  for  Prohibition  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia was  achieved  by  the  Act  of  March  4,  1917, 
which  goes  into  effect  on  the  first  day  of  Novem- 
ber of  this  year,  and  prohibits  the  manufacture 
and  sale  of  liquors  of  all  kinds  for  beverage  pur- 
poses." 

POSTAL  AMENDMENT  BONE-DRY  BILL 

Hardly  less  important  than  the  Webb-Kenyon 
bill  is  the  Jones-Randall  amendment  to  the  Post 
Office  Appropriation  Bill,  providing  for  the  ex- 
clusion of  liquor  advertisements  from  the  mails, 
not  only  when  directed  to  States  having  laws 


FEDERAL  LEGISLATION          299 

against  such  advertising,  but  when  directed  to 
places  where  the  solicitation  of  liquor  sales  is  for- 
bidden. The  Senate  bill  passed  the  House  on 
February  21  by  a  vote  of  321  to  72.  The  cele- 
brated Reed  Amendment  to  the  advertising  sec- 
tion of  the  bill,  providing  for  the  exclusion  of 
liquors  from  interstate  commerce  in  Prohibition 
States,  made  every  Prohibition  State  bone-dry. 
That  meant  that  the  State  would  not  let  the  peo- 
ple have  any  liquor  from  the  inside,  and  the  Fed- 
eral Government  would  not  let  them  have  any 
from  the  outside.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  the 
smashing  blow  this  law  has  dealt  the  liquor  traf- 
fic. It  was  owing  much  to  the  masterly  champion- 
ship of  this  measure  by  Rev.  Doctor  Clarence 
True  Wilson,  secretary  of  the  Methodist  Church 
Temperance  Society,  that  its  passage  was  secured. 
There  are  to-day  over  8,000  newspapers  in 
this  country  that  will  not  take  an  advertisement 
of  the  liquor  business.  Their  millions  of  readers 
object  to  having  such  temptation  pushed  into  their 
homes  and  under  the  noses  of  their  sons. 

NATIONAL  CONSTITUTIONAL  PROHIBITION 

THE   VOTE   IN  THE   HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES 
IN   1914 

When  in  1914  Doctor  Baker  announced  that 
the  Anti-Saloon  League  intended  to  stand  for  a 
National  Prohibition  Resolution,  I  said  to  him, 


300    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

"I  have  faith  in  your  wisdom,  but  I  am  just  won- 
dering whether  the  time  has  come  yet  to  pass 
such  a  resolution.  The  theory  of  the  League  has 
been  to  go  only  so  fast  in  legislation  as  public 
sentiment  will  sustain.  Are  you  not  afraid  that 
a  defeat  now  would  mark  a  halt  in  progress,  and 
maybe  set  back  the  reform  a  decade?  I  do  not 
say  it  will,  I  am  only  asking  the  reasons  for  your 
bold  policy." 

He  said,  "I  think  the  time  has  come  for  us  to 
make  the  strike.  I  think  we  are  strong  enough  to 
make  it,  and  if  we  are  not  we  shall  get  the 
strength  we  need  by  the  stroke." 

He  said  the  powerful  liquor  lobbies  in  combina- 
tion with  the  corrupt  politicians  in  the  dry  States 
had  rendered  the  enforcement  of  the  prohibitory 
law  so  difficult  that  he  feared  timid  friends  would 
get  discouraged  and  that  other  States  would  hesi- 
tate to  come  into  the  dry  column.  He  had  con- 
cluded that  they  would  take  the  strong  arm  of 
the  Federal  law  and  wipe  the  whole  thing  out 
at  once.  "We  shall  get  national  agitation,"  he 
said,  "which  means  saloon  extinction.  We  shall 
do  in  this  national  contest  what  we  do  in  that  of 
the  towns,  counties  and  States — fight;  and  if  we 
are  defeated  one  season  we  shall  appear  fresher 
and  more  ready  for  the  fight  when  the  next  year 
begins.  Backed  by  the  allied  temperance  forces  we 
shall  put  the  bill  in  this  Congress,  and  if  we  are 
defeated  we  shall  put  it  in  the  next  Congress,  and 


FEDERAL  LEGISLATION         301 

the  next,  and  the  next,  till  we  win."  I  said  to 
him,  uThat  is  the  kind  of  talk  I  like  to  hear. 
Your  arguments  satisfy  me  of  the  wisdom  of  your 
action.  I  believe  there  is  more  good  than  evil 
in  this  Republic,  that  God  is  stronger  than  all  his 
enemies,  and  that  you  will  be  victorious." 

Big  plans  were  laid  for  introducing  the  resolu- 
tion, and  a  call  for  one  thousand  volunteers  was 
made  to  join  in  the  demand  of  Congress  for  the 
measure.  Two  thousand  answered  the  call,  and 
marched  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  from  the 
New  Willard  to  the  Capitol.  A  finer  set  of  men 
from  every  State  and  every  calling  never  marched 
down  that  street.  I  was  in  that  procession  and 
proud  to  be  in  it.  As  we  came  to  the  turn  at  the 
foot  of  Capitol  Hill,  about  one  thousand  women 
of  the  Women's  Christian  Temperance  Union 
took  their  places  by  the  side  of  the  men  in  the  line, 
and  went  up  to  the  steps  of  the  Capitol  to  unite 
with  the  Anti-Saloon  League  in  a  demand  for  na- 
tional Prohibition.  A  policeman  said  that  aside 
from  inaugural  occasions  he  had  never  seen  so 
many  people  in  front  of  the  Capitol.  The  ex- 
ercises, which  were  imposing  and  impressive,  were 
held  on  the  outer  steps.  The  princely  Richmond 
P.  Hobson  spoke  eloquently  for  the  measure  he 
was  to  be  responsible  for  in  the  House.  He  was  as 
splendid  in  his  moral  heroism  as  he  was  in  his 
bravery  when  he  sank  the  Merrimac.  Morris 
Sheppard,  the  young  Senator  from  Texas,  made  a 


302     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

speech.  I  shall  never  forget  the  scene  as  I  beheld 
his  manly  features,  standing  out  in  bold  relief 
against  the  dark  background  of  a  sullen  winter 
sky,  and  heard  his  great  speech  worthy  of  his 
great  State  and  the  great  occasion. 

The  Hobson  Bill  came  to  a  vote  in  the  House 
of  Representatives  on  December  22,  1914.  The 
vote  was  197  in  the  affirmative,  189  in  the  nega- 
tive. That  so  drastic  a  measure,  the  first  one  of 
the  kind  ever  allowed  to  be  voted  on  in  Congress 
since  the  foundation  of  the  Government,  should 
have  eight  majority  when  Mr.  Underwood,  the 
Democratic  leader,  and  Mr.  Mann  the  Repub- 
lican leader,  opposed  it  fiercely,  was  an  astound- 
ing revelation  to  the  people  of  this  country.  An 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  requires  a  two- 
thirds  vote.  The  amendment  fell  sixty-three 
votes  short  of  the  required  number,  and  failed. 

The  vote  on  the  Hobson  Bill  in  1914  so  in- 
spired the  temperance  people  of  the  country  that 
State  after  State  fell  into  line  in  the  race  for  Pro- 
hibition, and  the  temperance  representation  at 
Washington,  increased  by  the  accession  of  mem- 
bers from  these  new  States,  gave  Senator  Shep- 
pard  hope  when  he  brought  his  bill  before  the 
Senate.  This  is  the  text  of  the  bill: 

Section  I.  The  manufacture,  sale  or  transportation 
of  intoxicating  liquors  within,  the  importation  thereof  into, 
or  the  exportation  thereof  from  the  United  States  and  all 


FEDERAL  LEGISLATION          3°3 

territories  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  thereof  for  beverage 
purposes  is  hereby  prohibited. 

Section  2.  This  article  shall  be  inoperative,  unless  it 
shall  have  been  ratified  as  an  amendment '  to  the  Constitu- 
tion by  the  legislatures  of  the  several  States  as  provided  in 
the  Constitution  within  six  years  from  the  date  of  the  sub- 
mission hereof  to  the  States  by  the  Congress. 

Section  3.  The  Congress  shall  have  the  power  to  en- 
force this  article  by  appropriate  legislation. 

After  a  three  days'  consideration  of  the  bill, 
it  came  to  a  vote  on  August  i,  1917.  As  the 
hand  of  the  Senate  clock  moved  from  half 
past  four  to  five  it  marked  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant moral  events  in  the  history  of  the  world 
—the  passage  of  the  measure  by  65  to  20,  or 
more  than  three  to  one  in  favor  of  the  resolution 
— eight  more  than  the  necessary  two-thirds  ma- 
jority, if  all  the  members  were  present  and  vot- 
ing. As  I  listened  to  the  roll-call  and  the  answers 
and  the  result  of  the  vote,  I  thought  of  the  great 
leaders  and  members  of  the  United  States  Seriate 
since  the  foundation  of  this  government,  and  of 
the  momentous  questions  they  debated  and  set- 
tled. And  I  said  to  myself,  "No  greater  moral 
question  was  ever  debated  or  settled  than  this  one 
today,  and  the  leaders  and  members  who  sup- 
ported the  resolution  arose  to  the  highest  stature 
of  mental  and  moral  manhood,  measuring  up  to 
the  traditions  and  standards  of  the  past  in  their 
guardianship  of  the  interests  of  their  fellow-men 


304     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

and  the  welfare  and  honor  of  their  country."  By 
this  vote  these  giants  seized  King  Alcohol,  who 
had  ruled  the  nation  for  fifty  years,  who  had 
made  his  headquarters  in  that  same  Capitol  build- 
ing, and  who  had  mastered  and  slain  some  of  the 
ablest  men  who  had  ever  graced  its  Senate  halls, 
and  hurled  him  headlong  to  earth,  the  weakest 
and  most  despised  monarch  ever  dethroned. 

On  July  30,  Senator  Sheppard  made  a  wonder- 
ful speech  in  support  of  his  bill.  It  ought  to  be 
printed  in  booklet  form  and  sent  into  every  home 
in  the  land.  I  am  sorry  I  can  not  make  room  for 
k  in  full  here.  But  I  asked  Senator  Sheppard  to 
put  his  views  on  the  subject  in  succinct  form  for 
insertion  in  this  book,  and  in  courtesy  and  hearty 
sympathy  he  gave  me  the  following: 

"This  nation-wide  Prohibition  amendment  pro- 
poses that  the  Federal  Government  shall  cooper- 
ate with  the  States  in  the  destruction  of  the  liquor 
traffic.  I  can  not  see  that  it  violates  in  any  way 
the  fundamental  plan  on  which  our  Government 
was  founded  or  contradicts  in  any  sense  the 
doctrine  of  State  rights.  As  I  understand  our 
history,  the  Federal  Government  is  the  creature 
of  the  States  and  possesses  only  such  powers  as 
are  expressedly  or  impliedly  delegated  by  the 
States.  I  do  not  understand  that  the  States  are 
unable  to  delegate  any  further  powers  than  those 
they  conferred  when  the  Constitution  was  origin- 
ally framed.  Whenever  it  appears  to  three- 


FEDERAL  LEGISLATION          305 

fourths  of  the  States  that  the  welfare  of  the 
country  demands  that  additional  functions  should 
be  delegated  to  the  General  Government,  such 
States  have  the  power  and  the  right  to  delegate 
such  functions  through  proper  constitutional  pro- 
cess on  such  conditions  as  they  deem  proper,  and 
the  whole  performance  is  in  consonance  with 
the  true  theory  of  American  Government.  By 
this  amendment  the  American  people,  speaking 
through  the  Federal  Government,  their  only  col- 
lective mouthpiece  in  a  governmental  sense,  will 
declare  that  the  liquor  traffic  is  an  outlaw  in  every 
part  of  the  United  States,  that  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment shall  be  empowered  to  enforce  such  de- 
claration in  concurrence,  and  only  in  concurrence, 
with  the  States,  and  that  those  States  which  have 
no  laws  against  the  traffic  and  desire  no  laws 
against  it  have  not  the  right  to  harbor  so  fright- 
ful a  menace  to  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of 
the  Nation.  Under  this  amendment  no  State  will 
be  deprived  of  the  power  to  legislate  against  the 
traffic. 

"We  want  the  battle  to  continue  in  family,  pre- 
cinct, county,  State  and  Nation.  No  unit  of  gov- 
ernment or  society  is  too  small,  no  unit  is  too 
large,  to  have  a  place  in  the  ranks  now  gathering 
for  this  conflict  under  the  banners  of  Almighty 
God.  The  liquor  traffic  is  so  firmly  intrenched 
in  some  sections  of  the  country  that  national  ac- 
tion will  be  necessary  to  exterminate  it.  We  are 


306    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

not  simply  citizens  of  States.  We  are  Americans 
above  all  things  else.  We  can  not  wrap  ourselves 
in  the  mantle  of  narrow  localism. 

HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  PASSES  PROHIBITION 
RESOLUTION 

On  December  17,  1917,  the  National  Prohibi- 
tion Resolution,  ably  handled  by  Congressman 
Webb,  passed  the  House  of  Representatives  by 
a  vote  of  228  to  128.  One  of  the  most  momen- 
tous and  glorious  experiences  of  my  life  was  that 
of  being  present  at  the  passage  of  this  resolution 
which  dealt  Bacchus  his  death  stab.  The  galleries 
cheered  when  the  veteran  Joe  Cannon  voted  aye, 
and  burst  out  into  wild  applause  when  Speaker 
Clark  announced  the  result. 

The  next  day  the  Senate  promptly  adopted  the 
amended  bill  by  a  vote  of  46  to  8  and  the  propo- 
sition was  sent  down  to  the  State  Legislatures, 
over  three-fourths  of  which  have  ratified  in  the 
following  order:  Mississippi,  Virginia,  Kentucky, 
South  Carolina,  North  Dakota,  Maryland, 
Montana,  Texas,  Delaware,  South  Dakota, 
Massachusetts,  Arizona,  Georgia,  Louisiana, 
Florida,  Michigan,  Ohio,  Oklahoma,  Idaho,  Ten- 
nessee, Maine,  West  Virginia,  California,  Wash- 
ington, Arkansas,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Kansas,  North 
Carolina,  Alabama,  Colorado,  Iowa,  Oregon, 
New  Hampshire,  Utah,  Nebraska,  Missouri, 
Wyoming,  Minnesota,  Wisconsin,  and  others. 


FEDERAL  LEGISLATION         30? 


WAR-TIME  PROHIBITION 

When  war  was  declared  it  was  confidently  ex- 
pected that  war  Prohibition  would  be  one  of  the 
first  measures  adopted,  for  three  reasons :  because 
of  efficiency  to  the  military  service,  because  more 
than  half  the  States  are  dry  and  sixty  per  cent, 
of  the  population  live  in  no-license  territory,  and 
because  both  Houses  of  Congress  were  dry  by  a 
two-thirds  majority,  while  a  bare  majority  only 
was  necessary  to  pass  the  bill. 

And  so  Congress  promptly  set  itself  to  its  task 
of  passing  Prohibition  as  a  national  emergency 
measure.  Its  committees  in  both  Houses  re- 
ported in  favor  of  the  Prohibition  of  all  intoxi- 
cants, including  beer  and  wine.  Immediately  an 
obstacle  was  struck;  it  was  the  whisky  barrels  and 
beer  casks  piled  up  as  high  as  the  dome  of  the 
Capitol.  When  the  war  broke  out  the  brewers 
of  the  nation  officially  rushed  to  the  front  and 
offered  their  services  to  the  President  to  aid  in 
the  war  on  Germany.  The  New  York  Methodist 
Conference  was  in  session  at  that  time,  and  as 
the  chairman  of  its  temperance  committee,  com- 
posed of  Corneille,  Tucker,  Robbins  and  Robin- 
son, I  read  the  following  resolutions  on  the  sub- 
ject, which  were  unanimously  adopted  by  the 
more  than  300  ministers  present : 


3o8     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

"Representing  the  opposite  of  what  the  brew- 
ers do,  we  suggest  that  they  make  good  their  of- 
fer of  service  to  the  country  by  closing  their  in- 
stitutions at  once,  putting  out  the  fires  of  the 
furnaces,  stopping  the  vomit  of  the  black  smoke 
from  their  tall  chimneys,  or  by  turning  them  into 
mills  where  the  grain  may  be  ground  into  food 
instead  of  being  rotted  into  poison.  We  suggest 
that  the  President  and  the  members  of  Congress, 
to  whom  they  have  offered  their  patriotic  service, 
will  accept  it  by  ordering  them  to  close  their  con- 
cerns at  once  in  the  interest  of  the  splendid  men 
who  are  to  fight  for  us  on  land  and  sea,  close 
them  (as  the  brewers  say  in  their  offer)  'for  the 
honor  of  our  flag,  the  integrity  of  our  nation, 
and  the  spirit  of  our  institutions.'  ' 

The  brewers  were  the  obstacle  Congress  struck. 
What  did  these  patriotic  heroes,  so  greedily  anx- 
ious to  defend  the  "honor  of  the  flag  and  the 
spirit  of  our  institutions,"  do?  Why,  the  very 
first  thing  they  did  was  to  rush  down  on  Congress 
as  a  set  of  bullies  and  sandbag  it.  They  com- 
pelled the  Democratic  caucus  the  very  next  day  to 
rescind  its  action  on  Prohibition;  they  muddled 
up  and  paralyzed  members  of  the  committee  and 
threatened  that  if  beer  were  included  in  the  pro- 
hibition they  would  hold  up  all  war  measures.  A 
frightened  Congress  believed  their  threat  and  de- 
layed summary  action.  The  brewers  never  could 
have  made  good  that  threat.  For  a  hundred 


FEDERAL  LEGISLATION         309, 

years  they  made  good  that  kind  of  a  threat,  but 
they  can  not  do  it  now.  Alcohol  has  been  de- 
posed. A  long  fight  ensued  in  Congress  over  the 
question.  When  the  final  vote  came  John  Bar- 
leycorn was  thrown  under  the  steam  roller,  and 
beer  and  wine  escaped  by  the  skin  of  their  teeth. 
On  September  9  the  law  went  into  effect  that  no 
food,  fruits,  food  materials,  nor  feeds  shall  be 
used  in  the  production  of  whisky  and  other  dis- 
tilled liquors  intended  for  beverage  purposes. 
Then  whisky  died  during  the  war,  pretty  certainly 
forever. 

The  surrender  of  Congress  to  the  demands  of 
the  powerful  brewers'  lobby  so  enraged  the  tem- 
perance conscience  of  the  country  that  the  people 
served  an  imperious  demand  on  their  representa- 
tives to  pass  the  Sheppard  National  Constitu- 
tional Prohibition  Bill.  So  the  defeat  in  the  beer 
war  measure  reacted  in  more  overwhelming  vic- 
tory of  the  constitutional  bill,  which  was  of  so 
much  greater  importance. 

BEER 

There  was  no  good  reason  to  divorce  whisky 
from  beer  and  wine  in  the  war  Prohibition.  The 
States  in  their  fights,  without  an  exception,  always 
couple  them  together  as  a  common  evil  to  be  abol- 
ished together.  Not  one  of  the  twenty-six  dry 
States  will  listen  for  a  moment  to  the  plea  that 


3io    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

beer  and  wine  are  innocent,  and  promotive  of 
temperance. 

We  deny  that  the  beer  and  wine  drinking  coun- 
tries are  temperate,  and  claim  that  the  facts  show 
that  they  use  the  largest  amount  of  alcohol,  and 
are  cursed  with  drunkenness  and  crime  as  the  re- 
sult. If  beer  is  so  innocent  and  commendable,  and 
whisky  is  so  devilish,  why  do  the  brewers,  these 
promoters  of  temperance,  own  seventy  per  cent. 
of  the  places  in  the  United  States  that  sell  whisky? 

On  September  23,  1918,  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives passed  the  war  prohibition  amendment 
to  the  agricultural  bill  by  a  vote  of  171  to  24, 
which  had  already  been  acted  upon  favorably  by 
the  Senate,  forbidding  the  importation  of  wine  on 
signature  of  the  bill,  the  manufacture  of  beer  and 
wine  on  May  ist,  1919,  and  the  traffic  in  all  in- 
toxicants on  July  ist,  1919.  The  bill  was  passed 
and  signed  by  the  President,  November,  1918. 

President  Wilson,  after  conferring  with  the 
food  and  fuel  departments,  issued  an  order  closing 
the  breweries  on  December  ist,  1918,  as  a  neces- 
sary war  measure.  Many  breweries  are  changing 
their  properties  into  useful  purposes  in  which  their 
brains  and  enterprise  will  insure  them  success, 
and  many  of  the  employees  are  securing  other 
positions  at  better  wages. 

The  Federal  Administration  deserves  great 
credit  for  the  manner  in  which  it  has  safeguarded 
our  precious  boys  who  have  given  themselves  to 
their  country's  service  in  forbidding  the  dealers 
to  stain  their  uniform  with  alcohol 


CHAPTER  XVI 

WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL 

CONFERENCE  ON  WORLD-WIDE  PROHIBITION 

ONE  of  the  most  important  moral  conferences  ever 
held  in  this  country  was  the  one  which  con- 
vened in  the  interest  of  world-wide  prohibition 
in  Columbus,  Ohio,  November  19-22,  1918.     The  Con- 
ference was  called  by  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League  of  America. 

The  Conference  began  on  Tuesday  evening  at  the 
Deshler  Hotel  with  a  Thanksgiving  and  ratification 
service,  participated  in  by  stalwart  workers  from  the 
field,  and  by  distinguished  delegates  from  our  own  and 
from  foreign  countries.  Until  Friday  noon  the  day  meet- 
ings were  held  in  the  Central  Methodist  Church,  and 
those  at  night  in  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  Auditorium. 
Seldom  has  any  convention  been  supplied  with  a  better 
grade  of  talent,  or  higher  order  of  speaking.  On  the 
program  were: 

Bishops  James  Cannon,  Jr.,  W.  F.  Anderson,  F.  J. 
McConnell,  T.  Nicholson,  G.  M.  Matthews,  W.  J. 
Bryan,  Governor  C.  S.  Whitman,  Filmore  Condit,  F. 
Fosdick,  S.  E.  Nicholson,  P.  A.  Baker,  H.  H.  Russell, 
E.  Cherrington,  E.  J.  Moore,  W.  B.  Wheeler,  E.  C. 
Dinwiddee,  J.  G.  Wolley,  Sam  Small,  A.  J.  Scroggin, 
L.  B.  Musgrove,  S.  S.  Kresge,  J.  S.  Hoagland,  Ex- 
Governors  M.  R.  Patterson  and  F.  B.  Willis,  G.  B. 

3" 


3i2    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Safford,  C.  F.  Swift,  G.  M.  Hudson,  R.  P.  Hutton, 
T.  J.  Bailey,  J.  Pope,  D.  M.  Gandier,  R.  E.  Farley, 
J.  A.  White,  H.  T.  Laughbaum,  G.  D.  Conger,  C.  P. 
Keen,  R.  A.  Hutchinson,  W.  H.  Anderson,  Scott 
McBride,  Ben.  H.  Spence,  J.  K.  Shields,  G.  W.  Crabbe, 
H.  Tope,  J.  Wilbur  Chapman,  E.  L.  Bosworth,  Father 
J.  J.  Curran,  A.  J.  Davis,  Brooks  Lawrence,  E.  S. 
Shumaker,  R.  N.  Holsapple,  R.  L.  Davis,  Miss  Anna 
A.  Gordon,  Mrs.  Richards,  and  others. 

Dr.  P.  A.  Baker  the  thinker,  orator,  organizer  and 
fighter  delivered  an  epoch  making  address  in  which  among 
other  things  he  said:  "If  weaker  nations  are  to  be  pro- 
tected from  the  brutally  strong,  weak  men  and  women 
should  be  protected  from  those  who  would  coin  their 
weakness  and  wickedness  into  cash.  The  time  is  oppor- 
tune for  this  great  aggressive  world-wide  movement." 

In  the  eloquent  address  of  Dr.  Howard  H.  Russell 
he  said:  "There  is  great  danger  the  friends  of  sobriety 
will  fold  their  hands  and  expect  prohibition  to  enforce 
itself.  Appetite  and  greed  will  still  exist.  'Eternal 
vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty.'  One  of  the  best  results 
of  international  organization  for  world-wide  sobriety  is 
this:  We  shall  keep  our  army  at  home  strong  and  alert 
to  hold  the  fort  which  has  been  won.  It  will  be  the 
finest  service  ever  rendered  for  the  good  of  other  lands, 
to  give  to  them  the  truth  which  shall  make  them  free. 
It  will  hasten  all  the  work  of  missions  and  speed  the 
savior's  reign  throughout  the  world." 

Wayne  B.  Wheeler,  National  Attorney  of  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League  in  his  strong,  clean  style  told  of  the  drastic 
enforcement  laws  that  would  be  asked  of  Congress,  to 
make  the  Federal  Amendment  practfcally  effective,  and 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    313 

said  America's  influence  in  drying  up  the  world  would 
be  measured  by  her  example  of  successful  prohibition  at 
home. 

Rev.  E.  C.  Dinwiddie,  the  National  Anti-Saloon 
Legislative  Supt.,  who  has  had  such  an  important  part 
in  shaping  prohibition  in  Washington,  said  that  with  his 
knowledge  of  the  Parliaments  of  the  world  that  he  was 
certain  that  the  Anti-Saloon  Methods  so  successful  in 
this  country  would  work  universally. 

As  the  movement  is  to  be  world-wide  a  profound 
interest  was  manifested  in  the  reports  of  the  delegates 
from  foreign  countries  as  to  the  present  condition  of 
temperance  sentiment,  and  organization  in  their  respective 
fields,  and  as  to  their  needs,  and  hopes  for  the  success 
of  the  world  organization.  Prominent  among  the  number 
were  Canon  S.  A.  Johnston  of  Birmingham,  a  prominent 
minister  of  the  Church  of  England,  Hon.  W.  Bingham 
J.  P.  of  London,  Robert  A.  Munro  of  Glasgow,  Scotland 
and  Cipriano  A.  Frausto  of  Saltello,  Mexico  and  others, 
all  of  whom  made  able  addresses  full  of  seriousness  spiced 
with  humor  and  fired  with  patriotism  and  Christian  hope. 

Hon.  Ben.  H.  Spence,  Secretary  of  the  Dominion 
Temperance  Alliance  of  Canada,  who  has  had  such  an 
important  part  in  driving  the  liquor  traffic  out  of  Canada, 
in  his  interesting  address  was  inclined  to  poke  a  little 
fun  at  the  United  States  by  saying  that  Canada  had 
beaten  her  to  national  prohibition  by  both  dominion  and 
local  option  laws  and  war  measures,  and  claimed  that 
England  so  often  criticized  for  its  tardiness  in  this  reform 
had  made  more  progress  in  temperance  since  the  war 
began  than  any  other  part  of  the  world. 

The  most  astounding  information   of   the  Conference 


314   KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

was  contained  in  a  communication  from  Mr.  Lawrence 
Mott,  the  representative  of  the  American  Anti-Saloon 
League  in  Tokyo,  which  stated  that  there  was  a  possibility 
of  Japan  adopting  nation  wide  prohibition  within  a  year 
by  the  action  of  the  Japanese  parliament  and  thus  make 
a  magnificent  start  to  the  plan  of  a  world-wide  prohibition. 

The  delegate  from  China  said  that  though  the  brewers 
had  established  their  death  dealing  institutions  in  that 
land  that  the  people  had  not  yet  learned  the  drink  habit, 
and  that  the  world  Anti-Alcohol  League  had  made  its 
appearance  just  in  time,  and  should  plant  itself  imme- 
diately in  that  territory. 

Bishop  James  Cannon,  Jr.,  who  has  had  so  much  to 
do  with  making  Virginia  and  the  nation  dry,  read  the 
report  of  the  committee  on  Resolutions,  which  said :  "Re- 
solved, That  the  Executive  Secretary  of  the  Anti-Saloon 
League  of  America  is  hereby  authorized  to  formulate 
and  to  carry  into  effect  plans  and  methods  for  the  efficient 
co-operation  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  with  temperance 
and  prohibition  workers  in  the  different  countries  of  the 
world  in  the  formation  of  such  an  International  League. 
The  Committee  is  further  authorized  to  render  such 
immediate  assistance,  financial  and  otherwise,  as  it  may 
deem  proper  and  advisable  in  promoting  prohibition  wrork 
in  other  countries. 

Bishop  Luther  B.  Wilson  of  New  York  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League,  and  its  President, 
who  receives  the  gratitude  of  the  nation  for  his  service 
in  carrying  cheer  and  Christ  to  our  boys  in  France, 
superintending  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  work  there  not 
being  able  to  attend  the  Conference,  sent  a  letter  con- 
taining the  following:  "It  is  an  auspicious  day  for  such 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    315 

a  conference.  Victory  on  the  field  of  battle  and  victories 
in  the  field  of  moral  reform  make  the  year  forever 
memorable.  We  must  conserve  all  the  fruits  of  our  vic- 
tory upon  the  battlefield;  likewise  must  we  conserve  the 
fruit  of  victory  in  moral  reform." 

During  the  session  of  the  Conference  the  war  prohibi- 
tion bill  was  passed  by  the  Senate  and  signed  by  President 
Wilson,  the  announcement  of  which  caused  the  wildest 
enthusiasm  and  called  for  a  resolution  of  congratulation 
and  thanks. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  leaders  selected  the  man 
around  whose  business  ability  and  personality  one  of  the 
greatest  printing  plants  of  the  world  has  been  gathered 
to  make  the  official  declaration  of  the  purpose  of  the 
Conference,  and  Mr.  Ernest  H.  Cherrington,  Manager 
of  the  American  Issue  Publishing  Company,  and  of  its 
literature,  on  Wednesday  morning  read  a  paper  which 
was  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  statesmanlike  we  ever 
remember  to  have  heard,  which  we  predict  will  have 
a  permanent  place  in  the  best  literature  of  the  world, 
and  become  a  potential  factor  in  the  world-wide  war 
on  moral  evil.  We  read  it  over  several  times  for  the 
purpose  of  cutting  it  down  into  smaller  space,  but  could 
not  find  anything  that  could  be  left  out  and  so  we  make 
room  for  it  in  full. 

MR.  CHERRINGTON'S  ADDRESS 

I.   INTRODUCTION 

The  world  stands  at  the  threshold  of  a  new  era. 
During  the  great  world  war,  now  happily  drawing  to 
its  close,  two  forces  have  been  contending  for  the  control 
of  the  world's  destiny.  These  forces  represent  two 


3i6    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

distinct  types  of  civilization.  One  catches  its  inspiration 
from  the  past;  the  other  faces  the  future.  The  essential 
quality  in  one  is  dictatorship ;  in  the  other  it  is  leadership. 
One  enacts  law  to  be  enforced  because  that  law  is  the 
decree  of  the  supreme  power  of  the  state;  the  other 
creates  law  to  be  obeyed  because  that  law  represents  the 
highest  expression  of  public  opinion  as  to  what  is  best 
for  the  individual  and  for  society.  The  greatest  issue 
in  the  world  war  has  been  whether  the  civilization  of 
the  future  is  to  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  license  or  in 
terms  of  liberty — in  terms  of  reaction  or  progress.  This 
issue  has  to  do  not  only  with  government  but  with 
morality  and  religion,  the  impelling  forces  of  all 
government. 

Henceforth  the  acid  test  for  Christian  civilization  and 
likewise  for  every  institution  that  has  to  do  with  Christian 
civilization  is  therefore,  not  what  it  has  done,  nor  yet 
where  does  it  stand,  but  rather  in  what  direction  does 
it  move? 

II.  WHY  A  WORLD-WIDE  PROGRAM 

The  program  proposed  for  adoption  by  the  Anti-Saloon 
League  of  America  is  a  world-wide  program,  because 
existing  conditions  compel  the  consideration  henceforth  of 
all  human  welfare  problems  in  world  terms. 

The  golden  age  of  individualism  closed  when  western 
civilization,  moving  westward,  met  eastern  civilization 
moving  eastward.  The  French  Revolution  and  other 
European  revolutions,  together  with  the  Civil  War  in 
America,  set  back  upon  the  shelf  of  antiquity  the  principle 
of  states'  rights.  The  past  fifty  years  has  been  especially 
marked  as  the  era  of  nationalism.  The  new  age  is  to 
be  the  age  of  internationalism*  The  wars,  treaties  of 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    317 

peace,  and  international  relationships,  from  1600  to  1775, 
concerned  the  rights  of  sovereigns  and  royal  families. 
Those  from  1775  to  1860  had  especially  to  do  with  the 
rights  of  individual  states.  Those  from  1860  to  1914 
involved  in  a  peculiar  sense  the  rights  of  nationalities, 
while  those  from  1914  onward  will  center  upon  the  rights 
of  all  the  peoples  of  earth,  regardless  of  race,  language 
and  geographical  boundaries. 

Already  the  trade  of  the  world  is  international.  The 
press  spans  the  oceans  and  organizes  the  atmosphere  for 
its  service.  Labor  movements  are  being  organized  on 
the  world  basis.  Education  breaks  the  boundary  lines  of 
governments  and  the  seclusion  of  races.  Travel  and 
modern  invention  have  reduced  the  vast  earth  of  a 
thousand  years  ago  to  a  neighborhood;  and  the  Christian 
religion  holds  the  nations  of  the  globe  as  its  parish. 

No  great  problem  which  has  to  do  with  human  welfare 
can  be  solved  fully  and  permanently,  by  a  single  nation 
regardless  of  the  attitude  of  other  nations.  Consequently 
the  law  of  self-preservation  and  self-defense  compels  one 
nation's  effort  for  the  solution  of  the  same  problem  by 
neighbor  nations.  The  revelations  of  this  war  are  con- 
clusive on  this  point.  A  democratic  government  in  the 
United  States  was  not  safe  so  long  as  there  existed  any- 
where upon  the  earth's  surface  a  powerful  autocracy. 

Moreover,  races  and  nations  alike  must  be  subject  to 
the  high  law  of  international  ethics  which  insists  that 
the  solution  by  any  nation,  of  a  problem  which  concerns 
the  world,  places  upon  that  nation  the  duty  and  respon- 
sibility of  passing  on  such  solution  to  other  nations.  As 
"no  man  liveth  unto  himself,"  so  it  may  well  be  said 
that  in  this  new  age  no  nation  liveth  unto  itself. 


318    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

III.    THE    EVOLUTION    OF  THE   ANTI-SALOON    LEAGUE 
MOVEMENT 

The  rapid  evolution  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  move- 
ment is  one  of  the  most  significant  facts  in  modern  social 
history.  A  few  years  ago  the  principal  objective  of  the 
temperance  movement  was  to  secure  local  Prohibition  for 
townships  and  rural  precincts.  It  was  soon  discovered, 
however,  by  those  who  were  interested  in  the  temperance 
reform,  that  the  life  of  the  rural  communities  was  so 
closely  interwoven  with  that  of  the  neighboring  towns 
and  small  villages  that  to  insure  Prohibition  in  rural 
townships  Prohibition  must  also  be  secured  in  the 
incorporated  villages  surrounded  or  bordered  by  such 
townships.  Thus  the  demand  for  township  and  municipal 
Prohibition  evolved  into  the  demand  for  county  Prohibi- 
tion. It  was  not  long,  however,  until  by  reason  of  the 
rapid  industrial  progress  of  the  western  world,  distances 
were  conquered  by  automobiles  and  interurban  lines  and 
it  became  increasingly  apparent  that  if  Prohibition  were 
to  be  effective  in  the  counties  the  policy  must  be  extended 
to  the  state  as  a  unit.  Moreover,  as  state  after  state 
fell  into  line  in  harmony  with  this  demand,  enacting 
state-wide  prohibitory  statutes  and  adopting  prohibitory 
amendments  to  state  constitutions,  it  became  apparent 
by  reason  of  the  operation  of  the  interstate  commerce 
law  and  by  reason  of  interstate  traffic  and  travel  that 
no  single  state  as  a  unit  could  completely  enforce  state 
prohibitory  laws.  Gradually  in  these  recent  years,  there- 
fore, the  sentiment  for  national  Prohibition  has  grown 
until  it  has  developed  into  an  overwhelming  demand  upon 
the  part  of  the  people  of  the  nation.  But  just  as  the 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    319 

hopes  of  the  temperance  forces  are  about  to  be  realized 
in  a  national  way  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with 
the  fact  that  in  this  day  and  age  of  international  relation- 
ships, when  the  laws  of  commerce  and  trade  so  link 
together  the  nations  of  the  world  and  when  great 
principles  of  right  must  be  defended  and  maintained  only 
by  the  fullest  and  closest  cooperation  of  many  nations, 
the  Prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic  in  a  single  nation 
is  practically  impossible  of  complete  enforcement  without 
cooperation  on  the  part  of  all  nations  having  close 
relationships.  The  Robinson  Crusoe  stage  of  the  Prohibi- 
tion movement  is  past.  The  liquor  problem  is  a  world 
problem  and  the  reform  institution  which  would  solve 
this  problem  must  be  world-wide  in  its  scope. 

The  building  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  has  required 
a  quarter  of  a  century  of  intensified  effort.  Its  machinery 
and  equipment  have  been  moulded  in  the  foundry  of 
experience.  It  presents  the  unique  character  of  an 
organized  movement  for  moral  welfare  which  has  been 
able  for  the  first  time  in  human  history  to  unite  in 
common  activity  in  a  single  progressive  program  the 
religious  people  of  all  creeds.  The  practical  value  of  this 
institution  as  a  successful  fighting  organization  has  been 
fully  demonstrated.  In  truth,  it  is  known  by  its  fruits.) 
To-day  this  League  presents  a  thoroughly  organized  piece 
of  machinery,  the  like  of  which  for  effectiveness  in  moral 
reform  has  never  before  been  known.  This  organization 
in  the  United  States  employs  a  thousand  people  who  give 
their  entire  time  to  its  activities.  In  recent  years  it  has 
been  receiving  and  expending  in  the  great  fight  for 
national  Prohibition  throughout  the  nation,  more  than 
one  and  one-half  millions  of  dollars  each  year.  A  half 


320    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

million  dollars  has  been  invested  in  its  extensive  and 
modernly  equipped  publishing  interests  at  Westerville, 
Ohio,  and  elsewhere.  It  publishes  and  distributes 
throughout  the  United  States  Prohibition  periodicals  to 
the  amount  of  more  than  two  million  copies  per  month. 
More  than  a  half  million  persons  in  all  the  several  states 
are  regular  financial  supporters  and  contributors  to  this 
League,  while  its  active  agents-  and  cooperating  friends 
in  practically  every  city,  village  and  county  of  every  state, 
are  numbered  by  the  millions. 

But  more  than  all  this,  the  Anti-Saloon  League  to-day 
holds  the  distinction  (its  enemies  being  judges)  of  being 
the  most  cordially  hated  and  most  greatly  feared  of  all 
the  organized  Prohibition  movements.  Moreover,  it  holds 
the  confidence  of  the  moral  and  Christian  forces  of  the 
nation.  It  has  made  good  as  an  uncompromising  foe 
of  evil  and  an  insistent  advocate  of  righteousness.  Hence 
it  stands  to-day  in  a  position  of  greater  strength  than 
at  any  time  since  its  inception.  By  virtue  of  the  position 
of  confidence  and  strength  which  it  has  won  it  is  to-day 
in  position  to  do  more  effective  service  than  ever  before 
in  its  history.  To  bring  another  institution  into  existence 
and  to  advance  it  to  the  position  of  efficiency  and  influence 
which  to-day  characterizes  the  Anti-Saloon  League  would 
require  another  quarter  of  a  century,  hence  the  utilization 
of  this  League  in  a  larger  sphere  of  world  activity  for 
universal  Prohibition  at  once  insures  economy  of  time, 
money  and  effort  which  are  of  vital  importance  and  con- 
cern at  this  stage  in  the  world's  history. 

Shall  this  most  efficient  arm  for  righteousness,  known 
as  the  Anti-Saloon  League,  be  perfected  and  utilized  in 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    321 

the  larger  sphere  of  action,  or  shall  it  be  demobilized 
before  the  war  against  the  liquor  traffic  is  over? 

Article  two  of  the  constitution  of  the  Anti-Saloon 
League  of  America  reads  as  follows:  "The  object  of 
this  League  is  the  extermination  of  the  beverage  liquor 
traffic."  That  object  will  be  accomplished  only  when 
in  every  nation  of  earth  the  liquor  traffic  shall  live  only 
in  the  archives  and  museums  of  civilization.  The  hands 
of  the  moral  forces  of  America  have  been  set  to  the 
plow,  and  there  can  be  no  turning  back. 

IV.   CONDITIONS   IN   OTHER  COUNTRIES 

The  conditions  existing  at  the  present  time  in  the 
several  nations  and  countries  of  the  world,  as  those 
conditions  are  related  to  the  liquor  traffic  and  the 
Prohibition  movement,  present  what  in  many  respects  is 
the  greatest  moral  problem  of  the  age.  The  Prohibition 
countries  (assuming  the  ratification  of  the  Prohibition 
Amendment  to  the  United  States  Constitution)  are:  the 
United  States  of  America,  together  with  Alaska,  Hawaii 
and  Porto  Rico;  the  Dominion  of  Canada  and  New- 
foundland; Iceland,  Greenland  and  the  Faroe  Islands 
belonging  to  Denmark;  Roumania  and  Russia  as  it  was 
prior  to  the  war  of  1914,  including  Finland.  This 
territory  covers  more  than  sixteen  million  square  miles 
and  includes  a  population  of  more  than  three  hundred 
millions,  or  about  one-sixth  of  the  population  of  the 
earth. 

The  partially  Prohibition  countries  are  of  two  classes: 
first,  those  which  have  provided  for  Prohibition  in  local 
areas,  and  second,  those  which  have  prohibited  the  liquor 
traffic  in  part  throughout  the  whole  territory  of  the 


322    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

country.  In  the  first  class  are  to  be  found  Denmark, 
Norway,  Sweden,  Australia,  New  Zealand  and  Scotland; 
while  the  second  class  includes  those  countries  which  have 
prohibited  absinthe  and  other  spirituous  liquors  such  as 
France,  Belgium,  Switzerland  and  Italy. 

The  countries  which  are  under  the  influence  of  the 
so-called  Prohibition  religions  are  China,  Manchuria, 
Japan,  India,  Persia,  Afghanistan,  Turkey  and  Arabia, 
together  with  certain  portions  of  Northern  Africa  and 
a  few  other  sections  of  Asia.  For  the  most  part  European 
and  American  intoxicants  until  recently  have  not  been 
permitted  in  these  countries.  In  all  of  them,  however, 
the  manufacture  and  consumption  by  the  inhabitants  of 
so-called  native  liquors  which  are  distilled  by  simple 
processes  and  which  in  reality  are  as  deadly  as  the  beer 
and  wine  of  western  nations,  have  not  been  the  subject 
of  such  intensive  commercialization  as  in  the  countries 
of  Europe  and  North  America.  The  native  liquor 
problem  in  these  countries,  however,  as  well  as  the  more 
recent  problem  presented  by  the  introduction  and  rapid 
development  of  western  liquor  industry  and  trade,  are 
such  as  to  insure  the  complete  degradation  of  the  natives 
unless  the  traffic  is  speedily  arrested  and  suppressed. 

Another  class  of  countries  are  under  nominal 
Prohibtion  of  the  traffic  in  distilled  spirits  by  international 
agreements  of  the  great  powers  of  Europe.  These  terri- 
tories include  practically  all  of  the  continent  of  Africa 
and  a  large  portion  of  the  islands  of  the  sea.  Unfor- 
tunately these  international  agreements  for  the  suppression 
of  the  liquor  traffic  have  not  been  generally  enforced, 
and  in  most  of  Africa  to-day  the  natives  are  being 
degraded  and  debauched  by  the  deadly  combination  of 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    323 

their  own  native  liquors  and  those  thrust  upon  them  by 
European  and  American  liquor  interests,  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  responsible  home  governments. 

The  countries  which  have  pursued  the  policy  of  regula- 
tion and  taxation  for  purposes  of  revenue  include  the 
British  Isles,  France,  Germany,  Austria,  Hungary,  Italy, 
Switzerland,  Belgium,  Holland,  Spain,  Portugal  and  most 
of  their  colonial  possessions. 

The  nations  where  the  liquor  traffic  is  practically  un- 
challenged by  the  governments  in  any  way  and  which 
are  almost  prostrate  under  the  domination  of  alcohol, 
include  the  Balkan  states,  aside  from  Roumania,  together 
with  the  republics  of  Mexico,  Central  America  and  South 
America.  Practically  all  these  countries  are  virgin  soil 
for  the  Prohibition  movement. 

The  proportions  to  which  the  liquor  traffic  in  most 
of  these  foreign  countries  has  already  grown  are  such 
as  to  bring  the  moral  forces  of  the  civilized  world  to 
attention.  Germany  and  Austria,  before  the  war  con- 
sumed more  liquor  per  capita  than  any  of  the  other 
nations  of  the  earth.  The  pre-war  consumption  of  beer 
in  Munich  alone  was  one  and  one-half  pints  per  day  for 
every  man,  woman  and  child.  During  the  four  years 
of  the  war  Great  Britain  spent  more  than  four  billions 
of  dollars  for  intoxicants.  Four  thousand  breweries  in 
the  United  Kingdom  have  been  continuing  to  do  their 
utmost  to  weaken  the  nation.  Prior  to  the  war  there 
were  more  than  a  million  small  distilleries  in  France. 
There  was  one  wine  shop  for  every  forty  of  the  popula- 
tion. Paris  had  thirty  thousand  liquor  shops.  Belgium 
with  seven  and  one-half  million  people,  supported  220,000 
liquor  selling  establishments.  France,  Italy,  Spain  and 


324    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Portugal  enclosed  most  of  the  wineries  of  the  world,  one- 
half  of  the  world's  wine  coming  from  France,  one-third 
from  Italy  and  one-seventh  from  Spain.  Milan,  Italy, 
had  more  than  five  thousand  drinking  places,  or  one  for 
every  forty-six  residents,  before  the  war. 

The  perplexing  character  and  discouraging  aspect  of 
the  problem  in  these  countries,  interwoven  as  the  traffic 
is  with  other  evils  of  the  old  world  and  with  ignorance 
and  superstition,  present  a  mighty  challenge  to  Christian 
statesmanship.  The  employment  of  barmaids  is  a  most 
serious  phase  of  the  question.  In  the  city  of  Berlin  the 
barmaid  establishments,  called  "animier  kneipen,"  employ 
over  1700  "waitresses,"  while  almost  every  London  public 
house  employs  women  as  bartenders. 

Drinking  among  women  throughout  Europe  is  also  an 
alarming  feature.  In  Germany  and  Austria  this  is  almost 
universal,  while  in  England,  France  and  Spain  the  rapid 
increase  of  the  habit  by  women  is  such  as  practically  to 
constitute  a  rivalry  of  the  sexes  in  beer  and  wine 
consumption. 

Ignorance  and  superstition  are  mighty  bulwarks  of  the 
liquor  traffic  especially  in  eastern  Europe,  Asia,  Africa 
and  the  Americas  south  of  the  United  States.  An  in- 
vestigation in  Moscow  a  few  years  ago  revealed  the  fact 
that  90  per  cent  of  the  drinking  population  had  acquired 
the  habit  while  in  school.  Of  18,000  school  boys  in 
that  city  between  the  ages  of  eight  and  thirteen,  I2,OOO 
were  drinkers,  while  5000  out  of  10,000  school  girls  were 
addicted  to  the  use  of  liquor.  Verily,  the  task  which 
awaits  Christian  education  in  these  countries  is  herculean. 

The  missionary  work  which  needs  to  be  done,  however, 
is  not  confined  altogether  to  the  ignorant  and  superstitious. 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    325 

Twelve  hundred  and  fifty  clergymen  of  the  Church  of 
England  together  with  four  hundred  and  seventy-two 
women  in  English  rectories  to-day  own  more  than 
$8,000,000  worth  of  stock  in  English  breweries.  In  the 
Pera  quarter  of  Constantinople,  on  the  same  plot  of 
ground  with  the  Orthodox  Greek  Church,  there  are  a 
dozen  drinking  places,  owned  by  the  church,  which  is 
kept  up  by  the  revenue  from  these  drink  shops. 

That  more  home  missionary  work,  moreover,  is  still 
necessary,  is  evidenced  by  significant  recent  events.  With 
all  the  great  work  which  foreign  missionary  representa- 
tives of  the  various  churches  have  been  doing  throughout 
the  missionary  countries  of  the  world,  they  have  been 
tremendously  handicapped  by  reason  of  the  political 
standards  of  home  governments  and  the  greed  of  home 
liquor  interests.  In  April,  1918,  when  neither  flour  nor 
sugar  could  be  bought  in  Belgian  Congo,  Africa,  and 
when  freight,  including  a  great  many  of  the  necessaries 
of  life,  was  being  held  up  in  New  York  city  for  months, 
because  of  war  needs,  there  sailed  into  Belgian  Congo 
an  American  vessel  discharging  at  the  Congo  ports  its 
cargo,  which  was  made  up  almost  entirely  of  American 
beer.  In  August,  1918,  when  more  than  seventy 
missionaries  of  various  boards,  anxious  to  return  to  Africa 
and  other  foreign  fields,  were  held  up  in  New  York 
city  for  several  months  because  the  government  was  in 
need  of  all  the  steamers  for  war  work,  a  steamer  left 
New  York  city  for  Liberia  and  Sierra  Leone,  West 
Africa.  Only  nine  of  the  missionaries  awaiting 
transportation  to  the  Soudan  were  permitted  to  sail  on 
this  vessel  because  all  the  space  was  needed  to  accom- 
modate the  cargo,  which  consisted  entirely  of  whisky 


326    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

for  West  Africa,   including  thirty   thousand   gallons  of 
one  prominent  brand. 

The  money  power  of  the  French  Bourse  has  been  a 
most  important  factor  in  the  propagation  and  protection 
of  the  wine  industry  and  traffic.  This  Bourse,  speaking 
through  the  government  of  France,  ofttimes  with  the 
assistance  of  the  governments  of  Spain  and  Portugal, 
has  not  only  been  responsible  for  holding  back  the 
Prohibition  movement  in  Scandinavian  countries  and 
Russia,  but  has  also  repeatedly  compelled  'the  prompt 
repeal  of  temperance  laws  enacted  by  the  countries  of 
northern  Europe  on  account  of  the  demands  of  the  wine 
traffic.  Nor  are  the  activities  of  France  in  this  regard 
confined  to  northern  Europe.  When  one  of  the  leading 
brewing  journals  of  the  United  States  in  a  recent  issue 
boasts  that  the  government  of  France,  in  the  interest 
of  the  wine  traffic,  by  diplomatic  representations  has 
helped  to  hold  up  the  war-time  Prohibition  measure 
recently  passed  in  both  houses  of  the  American  Congress 
and  now  in  conference,  is  it  not  high  time  that  the 
government  of  the  United  States  proceed  officially  to 
represent  the  attitude  of  the  people  of  this  country  on 
the  liquor  question  by  doing  real  missionary  work  with 
the  governments  of  European  nations,  without  violating 
diplomatic  proprieties  ? 

V.  IMMEDIATE  AND  IMPERATIVE  DEMANDS 

The  demoralized  condition  of  temperance  and  Prohibi- 
tion work  in  many  warring  countries  and  the  depleted 
finances  of  even  the  strongest  temperance  organizations 
in  Europe  call  for  immediate  assistance.  The  demands 
of  the  war  have  of  necessity  crippled  every  such  move- 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    327 

ment  in  Great  Britain  and  on  the  Continent,  while  most 
new  temperance  organizations  which,  prior  to  1914,  were 
springing  into  existence  in  some  of  the  more  backward 
countries,  have  been  practically  submerged.  Many  of 
these  organizations  are  already  calling  loudly  for 
assistance  and  the  opportunity  offered  to  them  for  effective 
service  at  this  crucial  period  is  such  as  to  make  imperative 
the  demand  upon  the  moral  forces  of  America  for 
agitational  and  educational  assistance.  We  must  be 
prepared,  moreover,  to  serve  these  organizations  with  any 
assistance  which  we  may  be  able  to  render  through  wisely 
directed  counsel  and  conference,  while,  most  of  all,  we 
must  put  our  shoulder  to  the  wheel  in  a  peculiar  sense 
in  order  to  aid  them  with  financial  assistance  commen- 
surate with  the  gigantic  task  which  is  theirs. 

The  peace  conference  just  now  impending  furnishes 
another  and  most  important  demand.  That  conference 
will  deal  with  the  control  of  native  races.  The  Powers 
represented  in  the  original  Brussels  agreement  for  the 
protection  of  these  races  from  the  curse  of  distilled 
liquors,  will  all  be  parties  to  the  coming  peace  treaty. 
This  phase  of  the  liquor  question  will  in  all  probability 
be  dealt  with  around  the  peace  table,  and  it  is  highly 
important  that  the  original  treaties  on  this  point  be 
repeated  and  amplified  together  with  reasonable  provisions 
for  the  full  enforcement  of  the  agreement  throughout  all 
of  the  continent  of  Africa. 

New  international  trade  agreements  should  take  into 
account,  hereafter,  conditions  in  Prohibition  countries, 
thus  protecting  the  numerous  anti-liquor  laws  of  the 
several  countries  from  infringement  or  encroachment  by 
foreign  trade,  regulations  and  treaties. 


328    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

Imperative  demands,  moreover,  are  not  limited  to  the 
peace  conference.  The  important  need  for  temperance 
reform  must  be  recognized  in  the  reconstruction  program 
of  the  several  nations  of  Europe;  otherwise,  because  of 
depleted  finances  and  because  of  financial  arrangements 
which  the  liquor  traffic  will  certainly  atempt  to  make, 
the  solution  of  the  alcoholic  problem  in  many  of  these 
countries  may  be  indefinitely  postponed.  Already  in 
Russia  one  government  has  announced  its  purpose  of 
resuming  the  government  monopoly  of  the  vodka  traffic 
in  order  to  provide  revenue.  Quick  work  is  essential  if 
Prohibition  is  to  continue  in  Russia. 

VI.   PRECEDENTS  FOR  INTERNATIONAL  ACTION 

If  precedents  for  international  action  in  the  interest 
of  the  public  health,  the  public  morals  and  the  public 
welfare  were  needed,  such  precedents  are  not  wanting. 
Instances  of  international  cooperation  in  warfare  for  these 
objects  are  to  be  found  in  the  wars  of  the  Crusades,  the 
international  action  for  the  suppression  of  piracy  on  the 
high  seas,  the  union  against  Napoleon,  joint  action  for 
the  protection  of  Christians  in  Turkey,  the  allied  expedi- 
tion in  the  Chinese  Boxer  uprising,  the  interference  of 
the  United  States  for  the  freedom  of  Cuba  and  other 
islands  under  Spanish  rule,  and,  most  important  of  all, 
the  concert  of  nations  comprising  three-fourths  of  the 
population  of  the  world  in  the  present  great  war  for 
democracy  and  righteousness. 

Other  peaceful  treaties  and  agreements  to  this  same 
end  mark  the  pages  of  the  history  of  international 
diplomacy  during  the  past  century,  such,  for  instance, 
as  the  Monroe  doctrine,  the  international  agreement  for 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    329 

the  suppression  of  the  slave-trade,  resulting  later  in  the 
simultaneous  effort  throughout  the  world  for  the  abolition 
of  human  slavery,  the  Hague  Conference  provisions, 
international  action  for  the  suppression  of  opium  in 
Oriental  countries,  the  Brussels  agreement  provisions, 
looking  toward  the  same  protection  of  native  races  as  has 
been  given  to  American  Indians  and  to  Indian  countries 
in  both  Canada  and  the  United  States,  together  with 
the  co-operative  world  movement  for  the  suppression  of 
what  is  known  as  the  white  slave  trade. 

Numerous  other  instances  of  international  action  not 
subject  to  formal  treaties  or  agreements  may  be  found. 
The  movement  for  the  abolition  of  human  slavery  brought 
results  in  the  freedom  of  the  serfs  in  Russia  in  1860, 
and  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  United  States  in  1863, 
as  well  as  similar  successes  in  Great  Britain  and  other 
countries  about  the  same  time.  Numerous  movements 
moreover  in  recent  years  have  been  directed  toward  the 
organization  of  the  international  sentiment  against  the 
liquor  traffic.  These  include  the  international  activities 
of  the  Good  Templars,  the  Woman 's  Christian  Tem- 
perance Union,  the  Sons  of  Temperance,  the  Rechabites, 
the  International  Congress  Against  Alcoholism,  the 
International  Prohibition  Confederation  and  other  educa- 
tional movements  along  similar  lines. 

The  necessity  for  precedent,  however,  in  this  day  of 
the  world's  history,  is  not  so  essential  as  it  has  been  in 
the  past.  The  world  is  alive  to  progress  and  reform, 
while  modern  movements  in  the  modern  world  look  not 
so  much  to  the  past  as  to  the  future. 


330   KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

VII.    THE    PROPOSED    PLAN    FOR    UNIVERSAL    PROHIBITION 

The  proposed  plan  of  organization  for  universal 
Prohibition  involves:  First,  the  enlargement  of  the  scope 
and  the  extension  of  the  activities  of  the  Anti-Saloon 
League  of  America;  second,  the  giving  of  substantial 
assistance  to  existing  temperance  organizations  in  other 
countries;  third,  the  laying  of  the  foundation  for  the 
creation  of  an  international  anti-alcohol  league,  formed 
after  the  plan  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of  America. 
The  new  situation,  so  far  as  Prohibition  in  America  is 
concerned,  together  with  the  opportunity  presented  in  the 
proposed  world  plan  for  universal  Prohibition,  demands 
not  only  the  reorganization  of  the  anti-liquor  movement 
in  the  United  States  but  a  prompt  extension  of  the 
activities  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  to  a  larger  sphere 
of  world  influence.  As  there  is  a  decided  difference  in 
many  respects  between  these  two  spheres  of  action,  there 
must  be  a  difference  to  some  extent  in  the  methods 
employed.  There  are  many  things  which  the  Anti-Saloon 
League  has  done  and  is  doing  in  a  national  way  which 
could  not  be  properly  done  by  the  League  in  other  nations. 
There  is,  however,  much  important  work  which  can  be 
conducted  by  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of  America  in 
almost  every  foreign  country,  such,  for  instance,  as 
personal  and  platform  lecture  work  by  field  agents  and 
missionaries  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of  America;  the 
organization  of  an  international  Prohibition  press  associa- 
tion and  the  establishment  of  an  international  Prohibition 
periodical  to  be  printed  in  different  languages;  the 
securing  of  cooperation  in  publicity  work  by  interesting 
the  daily  and  wekly  newspapers  in  all  countries,  and  the 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    331 

securing  of  valuable  publicity  through  the  literature  of 
international  travel  companies  and  organizations.  Great 
service  also  can  be  rendered  to  the  missionary  agencies 
in  all  mission  fields  for  the  building  of  and  organizing  of 
temperance  sentiment. 

Educational  agencies,  moreover,  furnish  an  opportunity 
which  should  not  be  overlooked.  Prohibition  propaganda, 
if  properly  handled,  can  be  conducted  through  exchange 
professorships  in  the  universities,  college  lecture  courses, 
general  Chautauqua  and  lyceum  bureaus,  university  exten- 
sion work,  as  well  as  scientific  temperance  instruction 
in  the  public  schools  of  all  countries  similar  to  that  which 
has  been  so  successful  in  the  United  States. 

Industrial  enterprises  and  trade  organizations  may  also 
be  used  as  agencies  through  which  the  industrial  and  trade 
organizations  of  other  countries  may  be  reached.  The 
results  of  Prohibition  in  this  country  have  converted  to 
the  program  of  total  abstinence  most  of  the  heads  of 
great  manufacturing  enterprises,  and  trade  organizations 
generally  throughout  the  country  are  undergoing  a  very 
decided  change  of  sentiment  both  as  to  the  practicability 
and  the  desirability  of  Prohibition  from  the  standpoint 
of  commerce  and  trade. 

Another  field  which  should  by  no  means  be  neglected 
is  that  which  is  presented  by  labor  organizations.  The 
relation  of  the  liquor  traffic  and  the  Prohibition  move- 
ment to  the  welfare  of  the  working  man  from  every 
point  of  view  must  be  brought  home  to  the  representatives 
of  organized  labor  in  America,  and  must  through  the 
labor  organizations  of  this  country  eventually  be  brought 
to  the  attention  of  the  labor  interests  in  Europe  and 
elsewhere. 


332    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

In  addition  to  all  these  other  avenues  of  approach  to 
the  alcohol  problem  in  other  countries,  special  effort 
should  be  made  to  secure  the  right  kind  of  diplomatic 
representations  by  the  official  agents  of  the  United  States 
government  in  all  the  United  States  consulates  and 
legations.  As  the  United  States  of  America  itself  becomes 
a  Prohibition  country  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  the 
people  of  this  republic,  the  official  agents  of  this  nation 
abroad  should  actually  represent  the  sentiment  and 
attitude  of  the  American  people  on  this  great  question 
as  that  sentiment  and  attitude  is  expressed  by  the  legisla- 
tive bodies  of  the  different  states  and  by  Congress.  More- 
over, since  these  agents  of  the  government  are  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  President  of  the  United  States  in  his 
official  capacity,  the  Prohibition  forces  of  America  should 
see  to  it  that  from  the  beginning  of  the  Prohibition 
regime  the  occupant  of  the  White  House,  who  directs 
all  the  diplomatic  agents  of  the  United  States  in  all  the 
countries  of  the  world,  should  himself  represent  the  great 
body  of  the  American  people  on  this  important  question. 
The  new  position  which  the  United  States  now  occupies 
among  the  world  powers  gives  to  this  government  a 
peculiar  opportunity  for  the  investment  of  influence. 

This  proposed  plan  for  the  enlargement  of  the  work 
of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of  America,  moreover,  involves 
special  organized  effort  to  assist  existing  temperance 
organizations  abroad,  not  only  by  counsel  and  by  full 
cooperation  in  movements  toward  the  federation  of  these 
forces  in  other  lands,  but  by  appealing  to  the  people  of 
America  for  financial  support  commensurate  with  the 
demands  of  this  world  program,  thus  enabling  the  Anti- 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    333 

Saloon    League    of    America    to    render    greatly    needed 
assistance  to  temperance  organizations  abroad. 

The  proposed  new  plan,  however,  does  not  stop  with 
the  missionary  enterprise  contemplated  by  the  Anti-Saloon 
League  of  America  and  the  assistance  which  it  is  proposed 
to  render  to  existing  temperance  organizations  abroad.  It 
involves  finally  the  laying  of  the  foundation  for  organiza- 
tion at  the  earliest  practicable  time  of  a  new  international 
league  against  alcohol,  which  shall  bring  together  in  one 
great  international  federation  such  organizations  as  the 
Anti-Saloon  League  of  America,  the  Dominion  Tem- 
perance Alliance  of  Canada,  the  United  Kingdom  Alliance 
in  Great  Britain,  the  Ligue  Nationale  contre  TAlcoolisme 
of  France,  and  similar  organizations  in  Australia,  New 
Zealand,  Holland,  Denmark,  Norway,  Sweden,  Italy, 
Germany,  Austria,  Japan  and  other  countries. 

VIII.   THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL  TIME  TO   STRIKE 

Nothing  is  clearer  than  that  now  is  the  psychological 
time  to  strike  for  world  Prohibition.  The  remarkable 
success  of  the  anti-liquor  movement  in  America  has 
encouraged  the  temperance  forces  of  the  world  and  has 
correspondingly  weakened  the  defenses  of  the  liquor 
traffic.  The  great  whisky  forces  in  America  are  already 
going  out  of  the  propaganda  field.  The  breweries' 
international  trade  arrangements  are  more  difficult  at 
present  than  ever  before.  The  invention  of  processes  in 
Austria  and  Italy  by  which  wine  can  be  made  free  from 
alcohol,  has  had  a  tendency  to  lessen  the  inducements 
for  alcohol  propaganda  work  among  the  wine  growers 
of  Europe.  This  tendency  has  already  been  reflected  in 


334   KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

some  slight  degree  in  the  attitude  of  the  wine  producers 
in  the  United  States. 

Moreover,  the  partial  success  of  the  Prohibition 
movements  in  certain  countries  of  Europe  have  greatly 
helped  as  back  fires  against  active  propaganda  of  the 
liquor  interests.  The  Prohibition  of  absinthe  in  France, 
Holland,  Switzerland,  Italy  and  Belgium,  has  greatly 
injured  the  spirits  trade  in  Europe,  while  the  increased 
strength  of  the  social  democratic  parties  not  only  in  the 
Central  Powers  but  throughout  Europe  makes  Prohibition 
a  burning  question  in  the  political  arena,  because  of  the 
anti-liquor  pronouncements  of  these  groups  prior  to  the 
war,  and  because  of  the  greater  strength  for  political 
action  wrhich  these  groups  are  bound  to  have  after  the 
war  is  over. 

The  financial  adjustment  due  to  the  war  in  practically 
every  country  of  Europe  has  served  to  demonstrate  that 
revenue  for  government  purposes  is  not  absolutely 
dependent  upon  the  liquor  traffic  and  that  when  a  really 
great  crisis  arises  the  liquor  traffic  can  be  depended  upon 
to  furnish  only  a  very  small  part  of  the  revenue  required. 
This  fact  strikes  at  the  very  heart  of  the  strongest  argu- 
ment that  has  ever  been  advanced  in  defense  of  the 
liquor  traffic. 

The  necessary  war-time  effort  for  conservation  of  food, 
fuel,  transportation  and  man-power,  has  demonstrated  in 
the  most  convincing  manner  the  scientific  fact  that  from 
every  point  of  view,  so  far  as  any  nation  is  concerned, 
the  liquor  traffic  is  a  liability  instead  of  an  asset. 

The  present  close  international  relationships  of  a 
majority  of  the  world's  great  nations  furnish  opportune 
conditions  for  international  representations  on  practically 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    335 

all  questions  of  reform.  The  twenty-four  nations  that 
have  declared  war  on  Germany  represent  three-fourths 
of  the  population  of  the  globe,  and  are  not  only  united  „ 
for  harmonious  military  action  but  are  enthusiastic  for 
cooperation  of  every  kind  with  other  nations  of  the  group. 
With  such  conditions  existing,  the  part  that  the  United 
States  of  America  has  played  gives  this  country  a  greater 
opportunity  to  speak  with  force  and  influence  on  the 
liquor  question,  as  well  as  on  any  other  question,  than 
America  has  ever  had  before.  Moreover,  the  intensive 
world  movement  toward  democracy  which  is  radically 
affecting  every  country  opens  a  clearer  way  for  political 
action  on  moral  reforms  by  the  very  fact  that  the 
reactionary  political  forces  in  all  these  countries  have 
been  greatly  weakened,  while  the  progressive  forces  in 
political  life  throughout  the  world  have  been  propor- 
tionately greatly  strengthened. 

This  is  also  the  psychological  time  to  strike  because 
of  the  fact  that  the  spirit  of  the  world  war  In  a  peculiar 
sense  has  turned  the  world's  attention  to  moral  and 
spiritual  realities.  Business  and  politics,  so  far  as  their 
hold  upon  the  people  is  concerned,  have  been  temporarily 
relegated  to  the  rear,  while  the  tragedies  of  war  have 
softened  the  hearts  of  the  people  and  made  them  receptive 
to  moral  and  religious  considerations.  The  great  forward 
movement  of  all  church  organizations  and  denominations 
in  the  intensive  missionary  campaigns  now  being  em- 
phasized, opens  wide  the  gate  for  an  additional  phase 
of  missionary  programs  which  must  include  temperance 
and  Prohibition  work. 

In  short,  the  general  psychology  of  world  conditions 
presents  an  unparalleled  opportunity  for  the  prompt 


336    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

organization  and  speedy  success  of  such  a  movement  for 
moral  betterment  as  that  represented  by  the  anti-liquor 
crusade.  Verily,  for  a  world  movement  such  as  the  one 
proposed,  the  hour  has  already  struck. 

IX.    CONCLUSION 

The  remarkable  temperance  progress  of  recent  years 
in  North  America  is  prophetic  of  permanent  victory  for 
the  Prohibition  movement  throughout  the  world.  The 
great  advance  of  science,  in  revealing  to  the  medical  world 
the  true  nature  of  alcohol,  has  sealed  the  doom  of  the 
liquor  traffic  and  points  the  way  to  abstinence  and 
Prohibition  wherever  the  voice  of  science  is  heard.  The 
active  propaganda  against  the  liquor  habit  and  the  liquor 
traffic  as  well,  which  in  recent  years  has  been  conducted 
by  great  industrial  enterprises  and  transportation  com- 
panies, insures  the  cooperation  of  the  world  of  industry 
in  the  effort  for  international  Prohibition.  The  attitude 
of  political  parties  in  America,  as  well  as  that  among 
the  social  democratic  parties  of  almost  every  country  in 
Europe,  insures  the  joining  of  the  forces  of  Prohibition 
and  the  forces  of  political  democracy  in  a  way  that 
eventually  will  bring  results.  The  leaven  influence  of 
the  Anti-Saloon  League  movement  has  been  one  that 
reaches  even  far  beyond  the  solution  of  the  liquor  problem. 
It  has  been  a  great  factor  in  the  movement  for  church 
unification,  a  purifying  factor  in  politics,  and  has  given 
to  the  word  federation,  a  new  and  significant  meaning. 
Just  as  the  political  influence  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League 
through  moral  legislation  has  exalted  national  political 
standards  in  America,  so  the  proposed  international  move- 
ment of  the  League  may  well  prove  to  be  a  helpful  factor 


WORLD-WIDE  WAR  ON  ALCOHOL    337 

in  international  political  relationships.  Just  as  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League  of  America  has  made  for  closer  relation- 
ship between  the  churches  and  has  given  to  the  so-called 
moral  forces  outside  of  the  churches  in  America  a  better 
insight  into  the  value  and  necessity  of  Christian  work 
and  church  organization,  so  this  proposed  international 
movement  of  the  League  may  well  make  for  world  federa- 
tion of  church  and  religious  forces  in  which  those  points 
on  which  all  religions  are  agreed  may  be  emphasized  to 
the  end  that  a  real  world  kingdom  of  righteousness  may 
be  established. 

The  possibilities  of  such  a  movement  as  that  which  is 
proposed  challenge  the  imagination.  The  unparalleled 
opportunity  presented  by  existing  world  conditions  is  such 
as  has  never  before  been  presented  in  the  Christian  era. 
For  the  moral  forces  to  fail  to  grasp  the  significance 
of  the  opportunity  thus  presented  would  be  a  political, 
social,  economic,  moral  and  religious  crime.  The 
organized  temperance  forces  of  America  cannot  avoid 
responsibility.  They  dare  not  fail. 

"On  before  us  gleam  the  camp  fires — 
We  ourselves  must  pilgrims  be; 
Launch  our  Mayflower  and  steer  boldly, 

For  the  desperate  winter  sea; 
Nor  attempt  the  Future's  portals 

With  the  Past's  blood-rusted  key." 

On  Friday  afternoon  the  delegates  went  in  a  body  to 
Westerville,  15  miles  from  Columbus,  to  visit  the 
American  Issue  Publishing  Company's  printing  plant.  I 
felt  amidst  the  rattle  of  the  presses  that  they  furnished 
much  of  the  ammunition  for  the  guns  that  shot  to  death 


338    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

John  Barleycorn  in  this  country,  and  will  help  to  supply 
the  guns  for  the  battle  on  the  other  side  of  the  water. 

The  delegates  then  walked  from  the  printing  plant  to 
the  Methodist  Church  in  the  village,  where  the  closing 
service  was  held,  presided  over  by  Dr.  Howard  H.  Russell, 
the  founder  of  the  whole  Anti-Saloon  League  movement 
in  America.  And  the  same  man  who  in  his  early  ministry 
carried  the  Anti-Saloon  League  as  a  babe  to  the  church 
in  Oberlin,  Ohio,  to  be  christened,  led  the  same  League 
grown  to  be  a  strong  man,  a  giant,  honored  by  the  moral 
conquest  of  a  'nation  into  a  church  for  its  ordination 
to  the  larger  ministry  of  a  world-wide  mission  for 
prohibition.  After  appropriate  scripture  lesson  and  song 
Dr.  Russell  preached  a  short  sermon,  all  looking  toward 
the  world  conquest,  and  then  called  the  delegates  to  come 
forward  and  kneel  at  the  altar  and  consecrate  themselves 
to  the  new  task.  Tne  whole  audience  came  forward  and 
many  volunteered  to  lead  in  prayer.  We  felt  the  Holy 
Spirit  descending  upon  us  and  filling  our  hearts  and  arose 
with  a  new  spiritual  anointing  to  follow  Christ  our  cap- 
tain out  into  the  world  conflict  for  the  destruction  of 
King  Alcohol.  To  men  and  women  with  such  a  just 
cause,  with  unfaltering  faith  in  a  righteous  God,  inspired 
with  the  infinite  love  of  a  living  Christ  with  a  deep 
determination  to  destroy  the  demon  which  most  hinders 
the  establishment  of  His  kingdom,  there  can  be  no  such 
thing  as  failure. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS 

BACK  of  all  organizations  hostile  to  the  liq- 
uor traffic  is  the  home.  It  is  the  assault 
of  King  Alcohol  on  the  home,  on  hus- 
band, father,  sons  and  daughters,  on  wife  and 
mother,  more  than  anything  else,  that  has 
stirred  the  American  conscience  to  anger  and  has 
prompted  the  people  at  the  polls  to  dethrone  and 
banish  him  from  the  several  States  and  from  our 
Federal  Nation. 

Woman's  love  for  home  and  the  dear  ones  in 
it,  whom  God  has  given  her  to  guard,  and  her 
fierce  warfare  on  King  Alcohol,  their  worst  en- 
emy, to  avenge  his  cruelties  and  crimes,  more 
than  any  other  one  thing,  has  made  the  public 
sentiment  which  has  crystallized  into  ballots, 
which  are  the  bullets  that  are  being  shot  into  the 
body  of  the  demon  king. 

There  can  be  no  created  life  without  organiza- 
tion. This  fact  is  not  more  manifest  in  the  vege- 
table and  animal  world  than  in  the  mental  and 
moral  realm.  Woman's  love  for  home  and 
hatred  of  alcohol,  its  enemy,  has  been  splendidly 
organized,  and  on  that  account  has  been  so 

339 


340     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

powerful.  Without  the  public  sentiment  that  it 
has  aroused  by  its  messages,  its  example  and  its 
militancy,  there  would  have  never  been  any  Anti- 
Saloon  League,  the  voting  agency  in  the  de- 
struction of  the  saloon.  I  requested  Miss  Anna 
A.  Gordon  to  give  me  some  facts  connected  with 
the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  of 
which  she  is  the  national  president,  and  received 
from  her  the  following,  which  in  spirit  and  liter- 
ary style  is  not  unlike  that  of  the  great  founder, 
Frances  Willard,  and  which  will  be  read  with 
deep  interest. 

WOMAN'S  CHRISTIAN  TEMPERANCE  UNION 

The  National  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union 
is  an  organization  of  Christian  women  banded  together 
for  the  protection  of  the  home,  the  abolition  of  the  liquor 
traffic  and  the  triumph  of  Christ's  Golden  Rule  in  custom 
and  in  law.  It  is  the  lineal  descendant  of  the  great 
Woman's  Temperance  Crusade  of  1873-74,  and  accepted 
from  the  early  crusaders  a  legacy  of  faith  and  faithful- 
ness. From  the  day  the  first  praying  band  knelt  on  the 
sanded  floor  of  an  old-time  saloon,  an  extraordinary  task 
has  challenged  the  home-loving,  home-protecting  women 
of  this  nation. 

For  over  four  decades  this  God-given  task  has  been 
ours.  We  have  been  true  to  its  sacred  obligations,  patient 
under  its  daily  discipline,  happy  in  its  heavy  hardships, 
undismayed  in  its  severest  storms.  Its  hope,  its  happiness, 
its  bigness  and  its  blessedness  have  led  to  a  consecration 


FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS      341 

commensurate  with  its  challenge.  Today  half  a  million 
women  gratefully  recognize  the  extraordinary  progress 
made  toward  the  fulfilment  of  the  vision  of  Frances  E. 
Willard,  founder  of  the  World's  W.  C.  T.  U.,  for  our 
white  ribbon  emblem,  typifying  organization  and  member- 
ship and  the  adoption  of  our  principles  of  total  abstinence 
and  Prohibition,  is  now  worn  in  every  section  of  the 
world. 

The  principles  of  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance 
Union  are  significantly  embodied  in  Miss  Willard's  fa- 
mous epigrammatic  saying:  "Only  the  Golden  Rule  of 
Christ  can  bring  the  Golden  Age  of  Man."  "We  are 
organized  to  make  the  world  wider  for  women  and  more 
home-like  for  humanity."  "Agitate,  educate,  organize,  are 
our  gleaming  watchwords  of  success."  "Womanliness  first, 
afterward  what  you  will."  "Be  steadfast  as  gravitation, 
good-natured  as  sunshine,  and  as  persistent  as  a  Christian's 
faith."  "The  joy  of  life  is  doing  good  according  to  a 
plan." 

The  total  abstinence  pledge  is  the  foundation  of  our 
platform,  for  we  believe  in  the  gospel  of  the  Golden  Rule 
and  that  each  man's  habits  of  life  should  be  an  example 
safe  and  beneficent  foi  every  other  man  to  follow.  When 
humanity's  chorus  catches  the  keynote  of  total  abstinence 
now  vibrating  the  world  around  we  shall  hear  in  the 
psalm  of  each  life  the  glad  harmonies  of  hope  and  happi- 
ness. 

The  National  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union 
had  its  birth  in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  in  November,  1874.  It 
is  organized  in  every  State,  Territory  and  dependency 
of  the  United  States,  and  locally  in  more  than  20,000 
towns  and  cities.  Young  people  and  children  are  enlisted 


342     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

in  the  Young  People's  Branch  and  the  Loyal  Temperance 
Legion.  In  addition  to  the  paid  membership  of  400,000, 
there  are  hosts  of  philanthropic  women  affiliated  with  the 
W.  C.  T.  U.  Almost  every  institution  or  philanthropy 
has  its  temperance  aspect,  and  with  that  the  W.  C.  T.  U. 
is  in  close  touch.  Our  national  society  owns  its  head- 
quarters in  Evanston,  Illinois,  and  maintains  headquarters 
in  Washington,  D.  C.,  for  its  legislative  work.  Its 
publishing  house  and  its  Publicity  Bureau  are  located 
at  Evanston.  The  "Union  Signal/'  its  well  edited  weekly 
organ,  makes  temperance  and  Prohibition  sentiment  the 
world  around.  Its  monthly  paper  for  children,  "The 
Young  Crusader,"  is  an  attractive  illustrated  publica- 
tion. Its  Frances  E.  Willard  Memorial  Organizing  Fund 
sustains  our  great  work  in  new  territory  and  among 
foreign-speaking  people  and  negroes.  Its  Lillian  Stevens 
Campaign  Fund  is  used  in  campaigns  for  State  and  Na- 
tional Prohibition. 

The  W.  C.  T.  U.  is  essentially  a  home  protection 
society.  It  is  the  greatest  anti-liquor,  anti-vice,  anti- 
everything-that-strikes-at-the-home  organization  in  exist- 
ence, and  numerous  are  its  activities  for  social  betterment. 
Our  thirty  departments  of  work  are  classified  under  these 
six  general  heads,  preventive,  educational,  evangelistic, 
social,  legal,  and  the  department  of  organization.  It  is 
this  "Do  Everything"  policy  that  makes  our  organization 
unique  and  powerful. 

We  have  a  vast  and  ever-extending  network  of  tele- 
graph lines  along  which  fly  swift,  blessed  and  constructive 
messages.  Building  these  lines,  establishing  the  stations 
and  enlisting  State,  country  and  local  workers  is  the  dif- 
ficult and  adventurous  task  of  our  ninety-five  National 


FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS      343 

W.  C.  T.  U.  superintendents,  organizers,  lecturers  and 
evangelists. 

These  indefatigable  and  devoted  W.  C.  T.  U.  spe- 
cialists are  guardian  angels  for  the  little  ones;  they  edu- 
cate for  a  life  of  total  abstinence  the  child  in  public  school 
and  Sunday  school;  they  help  mold  the  young  for  purity, 
for  health,  for  total  abstinence  from  alcohol  and  tobacco, 
for  thrift,  for  mercy,  for  industrial  training  and  for  all 
temperance  activities.  They  teach  our  great  principles 
through  literature,  the  press,  the  pulpit,  the  medical  world  ; 
through  cooperation  with  missionary  societies;  through 
the  betterment  of  labor  interests ;  through  the  awful  strug- 
gle with  vice  conditions ;  through  W.  C.  T.  U.  institutes, 
medal  contests,  prison  reform;  through  our  Gospel  car- 
ried to  railway  men,  to  lumbermen  and  miners,  to  soldiers 
and  sailors;  through  social  meetings,  flower  mission  and 
relief  work,  fairs  and  open-air  gatherings;  through  many 
forms  of  legislative  effort  for  Prohibition,  woman  suffrage 
and  Christian  citizenship.  The  achievements  of  these 
mighty  sentiment-makers  read  like  a  thrilling  romance, 
or  would  make  picture  film  of  surpassing  interest. 

It  was  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  that  originated  the  idea  of 
scientific  temperance  instruction  in  the  public  schools,  and 
it  was  chiefly  through  its  influence  that  mandatory  laws 
were  secured  in  every  State;  also  a  Federal  law  govern- 
ing the  District  of  Columbia,  the  territories,  and  all  In- 
dian and  military  schools  supported  by  the  government. 
Many  States  have  provided  by  law  for  the  observance  of 
Temperance  Day  in  the  schools.  In  most  of  them  it  is 
designated  as  "Frances  E.  Willard  Day."  Temperance 
teaching  and  training  of  the  children  make  deep  and  last- 
ing sentiment  for  Prohibition  and  its  enforcement.  An- 


344     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

other  great  educative  agency,  the  public  press,  is  being 
utilized  by  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  In  addition  to  work  done 
in  this  direction  by  State  and  local  organizations  the  Na- 
tional W.  C.  T.  U.,  through  its  Bureau  of  Publicity, 
supplies  material  which  is  used  by  papers  all  over  the 
country  in  the  form  of  ready-prints  and  plates. 

The  extraordinary  influence  of  the  petition  work  of  the 
W.  C.  T.  U.  has  been  felt  by  the  Legislatures  of  every 
State  and  by  the  United  States  Congress.  During  the 
debate  in  the  Senate,  July  30  and  31  and  August  i,  1917, 
on  the  Sheppard  resolution  for  a  referendum  to  the  States 
on  national  constitutional  Prohibition,  there  stood  in  front 
of  the  Senate  platform  a  huge  roll  of  petitions  collected 
by  the  W.  C.  T.  U.,  representing  twelve  million  endorsers 
of  the  bill.  It  is  generally  conceded  that  to  the  W.  C. 
T.  U.  belongs  much  of  the  credit  for  the  anti-liquor 
sentiment  which  has  given  this  country  so  much  Prohibi- 
tion territory  and  which  is  soon  to  give  it  national  con- 
stitutional Prohibition.  It  has  borne  a  leading  part  in 
State  Prohibition  campaigns  and  has  secured  many  reform 
laws,  particularly  those  for  the  protection  of  women  and 
children.  It  has  been  a  prize-winner  at  all  the  great  ex- 
positions of  recent  years,  notably  in  the  recognition  of  its 
Anti-Alcohol  Exhibit  at  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition 
in  San  Francisco,  California,  in  1915. 

In  cooperation  with  the  Department  of  Labor,  the 
Bureaus  of  Immigration  and  Naturalization  and  the 
Americanization  Committee  of  the  National  Chamber, 
the  National  W.  C.  T.  U.  is  promoting  varied  and  bene- 
ficient  plants  for  Americanizing  immigrant  women,  and 
for  securing  them  as  allies  in  our  great  battle  for  right- 
euosness. 


FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS      345 

For  more  than  thirty  years  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  ha& 
actively  conducted  a  patriotic  welfare  service  for  soldiers 
and  sailors.  Every  encampment,  fort  and  battleship  has 
been  reached.  In  the  present  national  crisis  this  work  has 
been  greatly  enlarged.  In  cities  and  localities  near  the 
camps  the  boys  in  uniform  are  made  welcome  in  rooms 
conducted  by  "White  Ribboners,"  who  give  them  the 
home  atmosphere  and  wholesome  entertainment  and  treats. 
One  young  recruit  gratefully  exclaimed:  "The  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  fathers  us,  but  we  also  need  mothering,  and  the 
W.  C.  T.  U.  is  our  mother."  A  supreme  effort  is  being 
made  by  our  organization  to  bring  about  the  abolition  of 
saloons  and  dens  of  vice  near  training  camps  and  mobiliza- 
tion centers.  Large  numbers  of  our  local  auxiliaries  are 
making  hospital  supplies.  The  department  of  Flower 
Mission  and  Relief  Work  reaches  with  its  beautiful  bene- 
factions even  the  little  French  orphans  made  fatherless 
by  the  European  War. 

Over  forty  countries  are  federated  in  the  World's  W. 
C.  T.  U.  Its  motto,  "For  God  and  Home  and  Every 
Land,"  suggests  the  breadth  of  its  work  and  the  depth 
of  its  patriotism.  The  W.  C.  T.  U.  cooperates  with  mis- 
sionary societies  and  works  for  the  passage  of  bills  pro- 
hibiting the  transportation  of  alcoholic  liquors  to  native 
races.  The  famous  Polyglot  Petition  originated  with  Miss 
Willard  and  was  written  by  her.  It  is  addressed  to  the 
governments  of  the  world  asking  them  to  do  away  with 
the  manufacture  of  and  traffic  in  alcoholic  liquors  and 
opium,  and  the  legalization  of  impurity.  It  has  7,000,000 
signatures  and  attestations,  and  already  has  been  publicly 
presented  to  representatives  of  the  governments  of  the 
United  States,  Great  Britain  and  Canada. 


346     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

The  National  W.  C.  T.  U.  early  advocated  an  Inter- 
national court  and  arbitration  for  the  settlement  of  dif- 
ferences between  nations.  World-wide  Prohibition  and 
woman's  ballot  will  help  bring  permanent  peace.  A  clear- 
brained  generation  of  men  who  have  not  inherited  the 
alcohol  taint  will  maintain  peace,  for  they  will  ever  ex- 
ercise good-will  and  sane  self-control. 

Extensive  plans  are  being  made  for  a  nation-wide  cele- 
bration in  1924  of  the  fiftieth  birthday  of  the  National 
W.  C.  T.  U.  Exultant  praise  fills  our  hearts  as  we  dare 
to  prophesy  that  this  jubilee  convention  will  be  signalized 
by  the  triumph  of  national  constitutional  Prohibition  and 
of  international  and  lasting  peace. 

WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 

Women  have  done  their  marvelous  work  in 
this  temperance  revolution  in  making  public  sen- 
timent and  affecting  legislation  without  the  bal- 
lot. No  Southern  State  has  adopted  woman  suf- 
frage, and  the  South  has  become  solid  for  Prohi- 
bition without  a  woman's  vote.  Only  in  three 
or  four  of  the  Western  States  has  woman  suf- 
frage cut  any  figure  in  the  Prohibition  contest; 
in  these  few  instances  woman  has  opposed  the  sa- 
loon. 

The  defeat  of  woman  suffrage  in  Maine,  the 
pioneer  no-license  State,  by  a  majority  of  two  to 
one  at  the  same  special  election  at  which  the  peo- 
ple put  into  the  constitution  a  provision  remov- 
ing sheriffs  for  not  enforcing  the  liquor  law,  and 


FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS      347 

the  opposition  of  the  saloonless  South  to  woman's 
vote,  have  raised  the  interrogation  mark  in  the 
minds  of  its  friends,  as  well  as  opponents,  as  to 
the  relation  that  woman  suffrage  sustains  to  Pro- 
hibition. It  is  pretty  clear,  however,  that,  as 
would  be  naturally  expected,  women  have  it  in 
for  the  saloon  and  will  with  the  men  knife  it  at 
the  polls  when  they  have  an  opportunity. 

I  spoke  at  the  Methodist  church  at  Oyster  Bay, 
New  York,  one  Sunday  morning,  and  after  the 
service  a  young  woman  who  said  she  was  from 
Kentucky,  snapped  her  black  eyes  and  said,  "What 
you  said  about  woman's  influence  in  driving  out 
the  saloon  is  true.  But  when  you  pictured  woman 
on  her  knees  praying  God  to  wipe  out  this  curse, 
why  did  you  not  suggest  that  men  help  God  to 
answer  that  prayer  by  giving  her  the  right  to 
vote?"  Colonel  Roosevelt,  who  attended  service 
at  that  church  that  morning,  standing  near,  heard 
her  question  and  said,  "She  is  correct  in  her  be- 
lief that  women  would  vote  against  the  saloon.  I 
have  just  returned  from  a  tour  of  Michigan  in  be- 
half of  woman  suffrage,  and  in  the  windows  of 
the  saloons  I  saw  large  placards  'Vote  against 
Woman  Suffrage,'  and  on  the  streets  I  saw  ad- 
vertisements of  the  saloon  in  living  forms  mut- 
tering out  in  their  intoxication  'Vote  against  the 
women.'  Of  one  thing  I  am  convinced,  and  that 
is  that  the  liquor  people  fear  woman's  vote  as  a 
deadly  enemy." 


348     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

When  woman  suffrage  had  been  so  badly 
beaten  in  New  Jersey,  the  day  after  the  election 
the  cartoonist  of  one  of  the  New  York  City 
papers  pictured  a  banquet  in  a  bar-room  with 
bloated  guzzlers  around  the  table  as  guests  cele- 
brating the  victory.  Their  hands  were  waving 
and  their  mouths  were  open  wide  in  shouts,  and 
underneath  the  picture  it  said,  "Hurrah,  Hurrah, 
we  have  saved  our  homes."  A  saloon  bum  was 
quite  active  on  election  day  against  woman  suf- 
frage, and  he  said,  "Let  the  women  stay  at  home 
where  they  belong."  Some  one  knowing  the  facts 
asked  him  where  his  wife  was,  and  he  said,  "She 
is  out  washing."  Yes,  she  was  out  washing  be- 
cause her  husband  would  not  support  her  and 
the  family,  but  made  her  support  him. 

MORAL  SUASION  MOVEMENT 

The  moral  suasion  movements  of  Father  Ma- 
thew  and  others  led  to  the  ballot.  In  1 840  the  pub- 
lic sentiment  against  the  liquor  traffic  was  so 
strong  that  the  people  felt  that  they  should  make 
an  attempt  to  vote  it  out,  and  they  secured  local 
option  laws  in  a  number  of  States  and  eliminated 
the  saloon  from  many  districts.  Ten  or  twelve 
years  after,  the  Prohibition  votes  got  so  numerous 
that  they  secured  State  Prohibition  in  Maine  and 
a  number  of  other  States.  Then  the  Civil  War 
came  on  and  the  American  conscience  turned  it- 


FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS     349 

self  to  the  destruction  of  slavery.  After  the  war, 
the  fight  on  the  saloon  was  renewed.  In  1865  the 
National  Temperance  Society  and  Publication 
House  was  organized  at  Saratoga,  New  York,  by 
325  delegates  from  twenty-five  States  and  about 
every  temperance  society  and  religious  denomina- 
tion, including  the  Catholic.  Its  great  service  in 
making  public  sentiment  would  be  worthy  of  a 
volume  by  itself.  About  the  time  this  society 
was  started  the  conviction  was  deep  in  the  minds 
of  the  temperance  people  that  they  should  organ- 
ize to  vote  the  saloon  out.  But  there  was  a  split 
in  the  camp  as  to  the  method  to  be  used.  One 
group  thought  that  a  temporary  political  party 
should  be  organized,  with  local,  State  and  na- 
tional ticket;  the  other  group  seriously  objected 
to  the  proposition,  and  insisted  on  a  non-partisan 
war  on  the  saloon,  using  both  of  the  old  parties 
against  it. 

THIRD  PARTY  PROHIBITIONISTS 

The  faction  favoring  a  new  party  was  the  more 
enthusiastic  and  persistent,  and  on  September  i, 
1869,  in  Farwell  Hall,  Chicago,  500  delegates 
organized  a  political  party  which  was  named  the 
Anti-Dramshop  Party,  but  which  before  the  ad- 
journment of  the  Convention  was  changed  to  the 
National  Prohibition  Party.  Three  years  later 
they  ran  a  Presidential  ticket,  and  have  had  one 


350     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

in  the  field  every  presidential  election  since,  in- 
cluding that  of  1916.  They  are  the  most  inter- 
esting group  of  moral  reformers  this  country  has 
ever  had.  Possessed  of  one  idea,  the  badness  of 
the  saloon  and  the  collusion  of  both  political  par- 
ties with  it,  they  started  out  to  hammer  that 
thought  into  the  mind  of  the  nation,  and  they  did. 
They  were  fighters  from  way  back.  They  fought 
the  saloons,  fought  the  old  parties,  and  sometimes 
their  friends,  if  they  did  not  agree  with  them. 
But  they  were  fighters,  and  nothing  so  stirs  public 
sentiment  as  a  fight.  A  dog  fight  will  stir  a 
neighborhood;  a  man  fight  will  start  a  town. 

These  moral  militants,  well  organized,  with  a 
bravery  unsurpassed,  went  through  all  parts  of 
this  country  and  banged  away  at  the  saloon  and 
all  whom  they  thought  had  any  responsibility  for 
it,  until  they  stirred  the  whole  nation  to  arms 
against  the  public  evil.  They  never  found  the 
practical  path  of  political  success  in  the  elimina- 
tion of  tKe  saloon,  but  they  found  the  path  of 
moral  success.  They  were  never  large  in  num- 
bers, but  in  the  battle  of  the  centuries  it  is  not 
numbers  but  principles  that  count.  With  supreme 
optimism  they  expected  that  the  growth  of  the  Re- 
publican Party,  from  a  small  beginning  in  its  re- 
volt against  slavery,  would  be  repeated  in  their 
little  band  becoming  the  dominant  political  force 
of  the  nation.  For  forty-five  years  they  have 
fought  and  been  beaten  every  time,  but  not  de- 


FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS     351- 

feated  morally.  And  now  after  forty-five  years 
of  defeats  they  find  the  whole  nation  has  come 
to  adopt  their  idea,  and  they  find  themselves  on 
the  platform  with  the  allied  temperance  forces 
for  national  Prohibition.  Any  just  estimate  of 
the  modern  temperance  revolution  must  give  these 
party  Prohibitionists,  with  their  bravery,  con- 
stancy, and  conscientious  conviction,  their  share 
of  credit  for  its  success.  At  my  request  Mr.  Vir- 
gil G.  Hinshaw,  the  able  chairman  of  the  Prohi- 
bition National  Committee,  gave  me  the  follow- 
ing: 

The  Prohibition  Party  has  been  the  John  the  Baptist  of 
the  Prohibition  reform.  For  forty-eight  years  it  has  gone 
by  its  present  name  and  has  held  to  the  one  purpose,  the 
prohibition  of  the  sale,  manufacture,  transportation,  im- 
portation, and  exportation  of  alcoholic  liquors  for  beverage 
purposes.  It  took  upon  itself  that  name  when  the  men- 
tion of  the  word  Prohibition  invited  to  obloquy  and  scorn. 
It  conceived  its  one  great  purpose  when,  among  all  the 
organizations  striving  toward  truth  and  morality  and  in- 
dustrial economy,  it  walked  alone. 

It  has  been  more  than  a  John  the  Baptsit.  It  has 
helped  to  bear  the  cause  of  National  Prohibition  on  tri- 
umphal entry  into  popular  public  consciousness.  Its  rep- 
resentatives, along  with  the  representatives  of  113  other 
national  organizations,  marched  down  Pennsylvania  Ave- 
nue, Washington,  D.  C.,  in  December,  1913,  and  sounded 
together  its  oft-repeated  slogan  "National  Prohibition  of 
the  Liquor  Traffic." 

It  has  done  more  than  merely  stand  for  the  principles 


352     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

it  enunciates.  It  has  borne  its  banner  into  the  halls  of 
State  Legislatures,  and  finally  into  the  halls  of  Congress, 
carried  by  men  elected  on  the  Prohibition  Party  ticket, 
and  in  every  presidential  campaign  since  1872  it  has  dis- 
puted the  right  of  any  man  to  be  President  of  these  United 
States  who  owed  his  election  to  the  quadrennial  slaughter 
of  a  half  million  of  the  American  populace. 

The  achievements  of  Congress  the  past  two  years, 
among  the  most  notable  in  American  history,  are  most 
vitally  and  necessarily  interwoven  with  the  career  of 
Charles  H.  Randall,  Party  Prohibitionist,  elected  from 
the  Ninth  District  of  California. 

Those  who  have  honored  the  Prohibition  Party  as 
candidates  for  President  since  its  organization  are  the 
following:  James  Black  in  1872,  Green  Clay  Smith  in 
1876,  Neal  Dow  in  1880,  John  P.  St.  John  in  1884, 
Clinton  B.  Fisk  in  1888,  John  Bidwell  in  1892,  Joshua 
Levering  in  1896,  John  G.  Woolley  in  1900,  Silas  C. 
Swallow  in  1904,  Eugene  W.  Chafin  in  1908,  Eugene  W. 
Chafin  in  1912,  J.  Frank  Hanly  in  1916.  Those  who 
still  survive  are  Joshua  Levering,  John  G.  Woolley,  Silas 
C.  Swallow,  Eugene  W.  Chafin  and  J.  Frank  Hanly. 

The  story  of  each  of  its  campaigns  is  a  story  of  heroism 
and  sacrifice,  of  the  launching  of  great  movements  with 
only  the  eye  of  faith  witnessing  from  day  to  day  the  manna 
of  support  provided  as  by  a  miracle  hand — a  story  too 
lengthy  to  be  recounted  in  this  brief  sketch,  but  which 
will  live  and  burn  brighter  with  the  roll  of  years. 

THE  ANTI-SALOON  LEAGUE 

The  other  faction  of  the  early  prohibitionists 
held  that  ttfb  way  to  vote  the  saloon  out  was  not  to 


FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS      353 

start  a  new  party,  but  to  use  the  old  ones  as  the 
instrument  for  the  purpose,  and  in  1885  they  or- 
ganized the  National  League  for  the  Suppression 
of  the  Liquor  Traffic,  non-partisan  and  non- 
sectarian,  with  Rev.  Doctor  Daniel  Dorchester  as 
President,  and  headquarters  in  Boston. 

Eight  years  later,  Rev.  Doctor  Howard  H. 
Russell,  at  Oberlin,  Ohio,  organized  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League  as  the  omnipartisan  inter-denomi- 
national agency  of  killing  the  saloon  with  the  bal- 
lot. Rev.  Doctor  Alpha  G.  Kynett  of  Philadel- 
phia caught  the  idea  at  about  the  same  time,  and 
was  putting  it  into  execution  but  was  not  able 
to  give  his  whole  time  to  putting  the  movement 
into  shape.  Russell  felt  called  to  give  his  life  to 
the  task,  and  did.  Russell  is  an  intellectual  genius, 
and  out  of  his  fertile  brain  there  sprang  the  well- 
defined  plan  of  the  great  movement  that  was  to 
destroy  the  rum  traffic  at  the  polls.  At  first  he 
started  out  himself  alone  to  speak,  raise  money 
and  fight  the  saloon  at  every  step.  Then  he  got 
money  enough  to  hire  other  helpers,  and  then 
others.  He  manifested  almost  superhuman  sag- 
acity in  the  men  he  gathered  about  him  at  the 
start,  men  of  the  highest  intellectual  ability,  sterl- 
ing character  and  indomitable  industry.  And  one 
of  the  most  significant  facts  is  that  these  really 
great  men  whom  he  selected  as  founders  of  the 
League  have  stayed  with  him  ever  since  and  are 
now  just  as  vigorous  and  efficient,  or  more  so, 


354    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

as  when  they  began  the  fight.  It  seems  most  in- 
credible that  a  great  moral  movement  should  lead 
in  the  final  destruction  of  so  great  an  evil,  in  the 
lifetime  of  the  man  that  founded  it,  and  of  those 
he  first  gathered  about  him  in  doing  so.  Russell 
went  from  city  to  city  and  from  State  to  State 
planting  his  idea  in  organization,  until  every  State 
and  Territory  in  the  United  States  and  the  Fed- 
eral Government  at  Washington  had  its  Anti- 
Saloon  League.  There  has  scarcely  been  a  ses- 
sion of  any  State  Legislature  that  there  has  not 
been  some  bill  unfriendly  to  the  saloon  introduced 
by  the  League,  and  most  of  the  measures  of  Pro- 
hibition in  the  States  and  at  Washington  have  been 
handled  by  its  representatives.  The  State  and 
district  superintendents  are  splendid  men. 

I  heard  forty  State  superintendents  make  three 
minute  speeches  at  a  convention  on  one  day.  They 
were  superb  men,  most  of  them  young.  I  was 
profoundly  impressed.  I  do  not  remember  ever 
to  have  heard  such  an  array  of  talent,  moral 
courage  and  real  enthusiasm  at  one  time.  Hav- 
ing been  for  nearly  ten  years  New  York  City 
superintendent  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League,  I  knew 
nearly  all  of  these  men  personally,  and  I  said, 
"No  wonder  the  liquor  traffic  is  being  so  rapidly 
destroyed  with  such  giant  generals  to  lead  the 
fighting  forces  in  the  States.  The  national  officers, 
including  the  Headquarters  Committee,  are  men 
of  the  same  splendid  type.  Rev.  E.  C.  Dinwiddie, 


FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS      355 

a  Lutheran  minister,  whom  Russell  selected  as 
one  of  the  founders,  possesses  political  sagacity 
and  knowledge  of  parliamentary  law  equal  to  the 
members  in  either  House,  and  his  influence  as  na- 
tional legislation  superintendent  can  not  be  calcu- 
lated. Together  with  Dinwiddie,  Wayne  B. 
Wheeler,  National  Attorney  of  the  League, 
James  Cannon,  Jr.,  and  Doctor  Barton,  make  a 
powerful  lobby  at  Washington  respected  and  co- 
operated with  by  the  Prohibition  Congressmen 
and  Senators,  and  by  the  representatives  of  the 
other  temperance  societies  cooperating  with  them 
at  the  capital. 

Doctor  Russell  was  the  first  who  acted  as 
the  National  Superintendent  of  the  Anti-Saloon 
League,  and  then  Rev.  Doctor  P.  A.  Baker  be- 
came his  successor,  and  to  his  generalship,  states- 
manship, forensic  ability,  character,  his  incessant 
labors,  and  to  the  executive  ability,  literary  talent 
and  efficient  management  of  the  great  publishing 
department  of  the  institution  by  Mr.  Ernest 
Cherrington  can  be  attributed  much  of  the  success 
of  the  movement.  I  asked  Doctor  Baker  to  give 
me  a  short  account  of  the  League  and  he  gave  me 
the  following: 

The  Anti-Saloon  League  was  born  not  only  at  an 
opportune  but  providential  time  in  the  history  of  the 
Temperance  reform.  Strictly  speaking,  the  League  is 
just  what  its  name  indicates — a  League — a  League  of  all 


356     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

churches  and  societies  that  hate  the  liquor  traffc  and  are 
willing  to  cooperate  for  its  overthrow.  A  prominent 
gentleman  said  recently,  "I  did  not  at  first  like  the  League, 
and  refused  to  cooperate  with  it;  but  I  discovered  we  got 
along  better  whenever  the  League  was  in  the  fight,  so  I 
swallowed  my  prejudice  and  became  a  Leaguer." 

It  has  three  distinct  departments  of  activity  to  which  it 
has  strictly  adhered,  viz.,  Agitation,  Legislation  and  Law 
Enforcement.  These  are  logical  steps.  Agitate,  which 
means  to  educate,  that  we  may  wisely  legislate.  This  is 
the  political  department  of  the  League.  It  looks  care- 
fully to  the  nomination  of  candidates  on  the  major  party 
tickets  for  all  officers  that  have  to  do  with  the  enact- 
ment and  enforcement  of  laws  touching  the  liquor  traffic, 
friendly  to  such  legislation  and  law  enforcement.  Failing 
to  secure  such  nomination  on  one  party  ticket  and  suc- 
ceeding with  another,  we  appeal  to  our  constituency  to  be 
big  enough  to  vote  for  a  good  candidate  on  the  opposite 
ticket  rather  than  a  bad  one  on  their  own.  After  a  law 
is  enacted  it  must  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  its  friends 
for  enforcement,  if  it  is  to  be  a  success.  The  League  does 
not  transform  its  agents  into  policemen  to  enforce  law. 
It  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  most  men  in  public 
life  would  rather  be  right  than  wrong,  if  you  make  it  as 
politically  safe  for  them  to  do  right  as  it  is  to  do  wrong, 
and  the  business  of  the  League  is  to  make  good  at  the 
ballot-box  by  making  it  safe  for  public  officials  to  do 
right. 

It  has  been  rightly  called  "The  Church  in  Action 
Against  the  Saloon."  Hundreds  of  thousands  in  the 
churches  find  it  a  desirable  agency  through  which  to  co- 
operate, and  the  churches  contribute  above  a  million  dol- 


FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS      357 

lars  annually  to  its  support.  The  League  is  directed  and 
governed  everywhere  locally  by  members  of  the  churches. 
The  policy  of  the  League  is  to  push  the  reform  just  as 
fast  and  just  as  far  as  the  average  sentiment  of  the  church 
will  permit.  It  chooses  the  church  as  the  basis  for  organ- 
ized effort  rather  than  a  political  party,  first  because  the 
working  church  is  the  natural  foe  of  the  drink  traffic,  and 
second  because  the  church  is  dogmatic  in  policy  while 
political  parties  are  timid.  The  church  can  meet  defeat 
as  often  as  is  necessary  to  settle  any  question  according  to 
the  Ten  Commandments  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
Political  parties  abandon  issues  when  in  the  judgment  of 
their  leaders  to  do  so  means  more  votes  for  the  party.  Be- 
sides, it  is  expensive  in  both  money  and  energy  to  keep 
up  a  political  organization.  The  sixty  per  cent,  of  the 
population  and  the  more  than  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  terri- 
torial area  of  the  republic  now  under  Prohibition,  if  not 
made  so  under  the  leadership  of  the  League  was  made  so 
by  the  methods  which  the  League  has  always  employed: 
the  omnipartisan  and  inter-denominational  method.  It 
has  taught  the  Christian  voter  independence  in  politics  as 
no  other  agency  ever  has.  It  has  been  opportune  in  method 
but  dogmatic  in  principles.  It  has  striven  to  do  the  thing 
that  could  be  done  while  pushing  forward  toward  the 
thing  that  ought  to  be  done.  It  has  never  been  averse  to 
taking  the  half  loaf  when  it  could  not  get  the  whole.  It 
has  believed  that  small  victories  were  more  inspiring  to 
its  forces  than  big  defeats.  It  has  placed  greater  emphasis 
on  the  direction  in  which  we  were  going  than  in  the  rapid- 
ity of  the  movement.  It  has  always  preferred  to  wait  and 
win  rather  than  to  fight  and  fail.  In  other  words,  it  has 
distinguished  between  a  fighting  chance  and  a  chance  to 


358     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

fight.  It  marshals  the  sentiment  that  exists  and  brings  it 
to  bear  at  a  given  point  for  immediate  results.  It  seeks 
municipal  option  where  it  cannot  get  county  option,  and 
county  where  it  cannot  get  State-wide  Prohibition.  As 
the  engine  on  the  track  makes  steam  faster  when  in  mo- 
tion than  when  standing  still,  so  sentiment  on  this  ques- 
tion grows  by  exercising  the  franchise  even  in  the  smaller 
political  units.  By  being  political  and  not  partisan  it 
has  an  appeal  that  does  not  run  counter  to  that  strongest 
of  all  prejudices — party  prejudice. 

The  wisdom  of  the  League's  policy  has  been  amply 
justified  by  results.  A  dozen  years  ago  the  most  sanguine 
did  not  dream  the  present  advance  would  be  made  in  a 
generation.  Two  or  three  things  have  greatly  contributed 
to  these  results. 

First.  When  the  natural  friends  of  the  League  criti- 
cized its  methods  and  scolded  and  denounced  its  policies 
it  did  not  reply  in  kind.  It  very  seldom  replied  at  all. 

Second.  While  the  leaders  of  the  movement  have  dif- 
fered sharply  at  times,  those  differences  have  been  fought 
out  in  Conference  Councils  and  never  carried  to  the  pub- 
lic. There  has  never  been  a  split  in  the  ranks  of  the 
leaders. 

Third.  It  has  always  had  a  continued  sustained  mo- 
ney support.  It  is  no  sooner  through  with  one  fight  than 
it  is  ready  to  enter  another  with  equal  or  greater  vigor. 
Hitherto  the  traffic  has  been  able  to  wear  out  the  opposi- 
tion and  to  recuperate  and  repair  any  damage  that  may 
have  been  inflicted.  A  great  advance  was  made  when  the 
liquor  business  was  driven  from  the  association  of  things 
that  were  decent  and  made  to  stand  alone  before  the 
world,  exposing  its  hypocrisy  and  its  hideous  deformities. 


FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS     359 

It  was  then  that  it  became  the  best  asset  for  the  Prohibi- 
tion forces.  There  is  a  rapidly  growing  sentiment  that 
the  traffic  in  intoxicating  liquors  has  no  rightful  place  in 
our  modern  civilization.  An  institution  of  such  a  character 
that  war  must  first  make  war  upon  it  before  it  can  con- 
duct war  scientifically  and  successfully,  certainly  has  no 
claims  for  protection  at  the  hands  of  a  civilized  people. 
Everything  in  the  world  that  is  of  good  repute  is  against 
it,  and  it  must  go.  It  is  going.  Already  it  has  no  advo- 
cates and  few  partisans.  It  must  depend  for  the  continu- 
ation of  its  worthless  life  upon  appetite  which  it  has  cre- 
ated, and  greed  for  gain,  both  of  which  appeals  to  the 
weakness  and  wickedness  of  humankind. 

In  the  past  it  has  made  and  unmade  public  officials  at 
will,  but  that  is  of  the  past.  Public  officials  no  longer 
bow  the  "pregnant  hinge"  before  it.  Its  threat  of  politi- 
cal extinction  and  boycott  has  no  terrors  for  men  in  office 
or  business.  It  is  a  liability  and  not  an  asset.  Its  known 
support  of  a  candidate  for  any  office  in  almost  any  State 
or  community  means  the  undoing  of  that  candidate.  Its 
foul  breath  spreads  miasma  and  death  wherever  it  touches. 
More  laws,  State  and  national,  are  passed  against  it 
and  over  its  protest  than  are  passed  on  any  other  subject. 
The  final  drive  for  the  speedy  and  complete  overthrow 
of  the  traffic  is  now  on.  The  Senate  by  a  vote  of  three 
and  one-half  to  one  voted  to  submit  the  question  to  the 
States  for  ratification  or  rejection,  which  means  ratifi- 
cation. The  Lower  House  will  follow  its  example. 

To  attempt  to  stop  National  Constitutional  Prohibi- 
tion is  as  futile  as  to  attempt  to  stop  the  mouth  of  Vesu- 
vius with  a  bundle  of  straw,  or  to  turn  back  Niagara 
with  a  child's  hand.  The  accumulated  Christian  con- 


360    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

science  and  Christian  forces  of  a  century  are  pouring  an 
irresistible  flood  of  wrath  against  this  monster  of  horrors. 
Commerce,  business,  science,  industries  of  all  kinds  have 
joined  hands  with  religion  to  make  common  cause  against 
this  decivilizer  of  the  race.  Nqt  only  must  the  world  be 
made  safe  for  democracy,  but  it  must  be  made  safe  for 
childhood  and  womanhood  as  well.  We  are  soon  to  see 
the  fulfillment  of  the  vision  of  Abraham  Lincoln  when 
he  saw  the  day  when  there  should  be  neither  a  slave  nor 
a  drunkard  under  the  ample  folds  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes, 
and  when  childhood  throughout  the  Republic  shall  have 
a  fair  chance  for  citizenship  in  the  Coming  Kingdom. 

THE  ORDER  OF  GOOD  TEMPLARS 

The  Good  Templars  are  a  world-wide  organ- 
izantion  composed  of  more  than  half  a  million 
total  abstainers.  In  1851  it  was  organized  in 
this  country  and  has  been  one  of  the  most  effi- 
cient agents  in  the  destruction  of  the  saloon. 

The  Sons  of  Temperance,  which  sprang  out  of 
the  old  Washington  Maine  movement,  has  been 
efficient  in  saving  men  from  drink  and  fighting 
the  saloon  in  America. 

While  the  Anti-Saloon  League  has  taken  the 
lead  at  the  voting  end  of  the  destruction  of  the 
liquor  traffic,  it  has  not  done  all  the  work.  Most 
of  the  temperance  and  church  forces  of  the  nation 
have  cooperated  with  it  in  the  war  on  the  saloon; 
among  these  organizations,  besides  those  men- 
tioned, are  the  National  Temperance  Council,  the 


FIGHTING  ORGANIZATIONS      361 

Scientific  Temperance  Federation,  the  Interna- 
tional Reform  Bureau,  the  Inter-collegiate  Asso- 
ciation, the  National  Inter-Church  Federation, 
the  Templars  of  Honor  and  Temperance,  the 
Independent  Order  of  Rechabites,  and  the 
temperance  societies  of  the  various  churches. 
Representatives  of  most  of  these  organizations 
have  visibly  and  vigorously  promoted  the  cause  of 
State  and  Federal  legislation. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
ALCOHOL  AND  THEOLOGY 

THE  liquor  problem  is  a  psychological  one, 
having  as  its  basis  a  soul  thirst  of  drink 
and  a  soul  hunger  for  gold.     It  is  a  theo- 
logical one,  because  God  is  the  drink  and  food  of 
the  soul,  because  He  is  the  medicine  that  cures 
the  perverted   appetites   and  the   physician  that 
keeps  the  sin-sick  soul  alive. 

The  problem  is  elementally  a  theological  one, 
involving  the  relationship  of  the  human  soul  to 
its  Creator.  God  has  no  earthly  enemy  so  in- 
veterate as  King  Alcohol.  No  such  assaults  have 
been  made  on  the  Church  as  those  waged  by  the 
saloon.  There  never  was  a  more  clearly  defined 
issue  between  right  and  wrong  than  in  the  conflict 
between  the  Church  and  the  saloon  during  this 
modern  temperance  revolution.  They  represent 
ideas  exactly  opposite.  One  stands  for  everything 
that  is  bad,  the  other  for  everything  that  is  good. 
The  saloon  breeds  disease,  disorder,  misery,  crime; 
the  Church  brings  order,  health,  wealth,  happiness 
and  virtue.  The  Church  represents  the  idea  of 
God  the  best,  the  saloon  the  idea  of  the  devil  the 

362 


ALCOHOL  AND  THEOLOGY      363 

worst  in  the  world.  The  saloons  are  the  breeding 
place  of  all  kinds  of  vice  and  crime.  In  them 
the  thieves,  the  gamblers,  the  murderers,  the  gun- 
men, the  ballot-box  stuffers,  grafters,  purchasers 
of  law,  the  debauched  and  the  ruined  find  their 
education  and  protection,  and  from  them  go  out 
to  prey  upon  society.  How  could  the  Church  with 
the  spirit  and  mission  of  her  Master  do  other  than 
fight  such  an  institution  and  fight  it  to  the  death? 
Precisely  this  thing  it  is  doing.  Science,  Big  Busi- 
ness, law,  the  ballot,  have  been  powerful  factors 
in  the  destruction  of  the  saloon,  and  those  who  do 
not  look  back  far  enough  to  find  the  origins  think 
that  these  have  done  it  all.  But  the  fact  is  that 
back  of  all  and  more  powerful  than  all  is  Reli- 
gion, which  is  destroying  the  saloon.  It  is  right 
beating  down  the  wrong,  love  conquering  hate;  it 
is  righteousness  overcoming  iniquity;  it  is  happi- 
ness putting  an  end  to  misery;  it  is  heaven  banish- 
ing hell.  It  is  God  through  His  Church  who  is 
dethroning  and  killing  the  Devil  King  Alcohol. 
God  made  the  world,  He  made  the  people  in  it, 
and  He  is  in  it  Himself,  a  real  factor,  the  most 
real  factor  in  human  life.  He  is  in  this  world  not  to 
witness  events,  but  to  shape  them;  not  to  see  man 
toil,  but  to  help  him  in  it ;  not  to  watch  the  battle, 
but  to  marshal  His  soldiers  and  to  lead  them  in 
the  fi%ht  against  moral  evil.  The  leading  figures 
who  have  appeared  in  the  temperance  movement 
in  this  country  from  the  beginning  until  now  have' 


364     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

not  stood  out  in  bold  relief  more  plainly  than  has 
the  form  of  the  Son  of  Man  as  He  has  marched 
down  the  years  and  taken  an  active  part  in  the 
battle  against  King  Alcohol. 

Father  Mathew,  an  Irish  Catholic  priest,  in 
organizing  a  total  abstinence  society  in  1838, 
said:  "If  through  any  humble  instrumentality  of 
mine  I  can  do  good  to  my  fellow  creatures,  and 
give  glory  to  God,  I  feel  I  am  bound  as  a  minister 
of  the  Gospel  to  throw  all  my  personal  considera- 
tions aside  and  give  a  helping  hand.  Indeed,  if 
only  one  poor  soul  could  be  rescued  from  destruc- 
tion by  what  we  are  now  attempting,  it  would  be 
giving  glory  to  God,  and  worth  all  the  trouble  we 
could  take."  And  when  he  took  the  pen  and 
signed  the  pledge  at  the  head  of  sixty  other  names 
he  said,  "Here  goes,  in  the  Name  of  God."  And 
God  was  so  sensibly  with  him  that  under  his  divine 
spell  150,000  men  signed  the  pledge  in  four  days. 
Rev.  Doctor  Theodore  Cuyler,  one  of  the  greatest 
apostles  of  temperance  in  America,  said  that  when 
he  was  a  young  minister  he  attended  a  Father  Ma- 
thew meeting  in  Edinburgh,  Scotland,  at  which 
50,000  men  were  gathered  on  the  lawn,  and  multi- 
tudes kneeled  down  on  the  grass  to  take  the  pledge 
from  the  priest,  who  had  them  ask  God  to  help 
them  keep  it.  In  describing  this  meeting  Doctor 
Cuyler  said:  "Father  Mathew  spoke  with  modest 
simplicity  and  deep  emotion,  attributing  all  his 
wonderful  success  to  the  direct  blessings  of  God 


ALCOHOL  AND  THEOLOGY      365 

upon  his  efforts  to  persuade  his  fellowmen  ta 
throw  off  the  despotism  of  the  bottle." 

John  B.  Gough,  the  most  eloquent  temperance 
orator  of  the  nineteenth  century,  was  as  devout  a 
Christian  as  he  was  eloquent  as  a  speaker,  and 
much  of  his  magnetism  was  due  to  the  ethical  and 
spiritual  element. 

The  work  of  Francis  Murphy,  one  of  the  great- 
est temperance  reformers  the  country  ever  had, 
was  not  more  manifest  than  was  God's  call  to 
him  to  enter  it,  and  the  divine  presence  in  it.  He 
was  a  saloon-keeper  in  Portland,  Maine,  sent  to 
prison  for  illegal  selling  in  1873.  God's  Spirit 
sent  a  little  band  to  the  jail  one  Sunday,  who  came 
in  singing,  "All  Hail  the  power  of  Jesus  Name," 
to  hold  a  Gospel  service.  Murphy,  seated  on  his 
iron  bed  in  the  cell,  was  coaxed  out  into  the  meet- 
ing and  was  so  deeply  convicted  that  he  became 
converted.  He  asked  the  sheriff  to  let  him  hold 
a  prayer  meeting,  at  which  fifty  prisoners  pro- 
fessed conversion.  When  his  time  was  out,  he 
determined  to  devote  his  whole  time  to  the  rescue 
of  men  from  drink  by  the  pledge  and  by  the  con- 
version of  the  soul  by  the  Gospel.  God  sent  him 
with  this  Gospel  temperance  message  through  this 
country  and  to  other  nations  of  the  earth. 

The  idea  of  God  is  the  central  thought  of  the 
Prohibition  Party.  It  was  organized  to  fight  a 
wrong  which  God  hates  and  which  they  claimed 
good  people  ought  to  hate.  It  was  a  religious 


366     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

idea  pure  and  simple,  and  that  is  why  the  institu- 
tion has  lived  so  long  and  fought  so  hard.  That 
is  why  nearly  all  of  the  five  hundred  men  who  or- 
ganized the  party  were  ministers,  or  members  of 
the  Christian  Church,  and  that  is  why  to  this  day 
nearly  all  who  vote  that  ticket  are  ministers  or 
devout  Christians. 

The  Woman's  Crusade,  the  mother  of  the 
Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  was  a  re- 
ligious movement  entirely,  born  in  the  agonizing 
prayers  of  women  imploring  the  Heavenly  Father 
to  come  down  and  save  their  families  and  remove 
the  saloon  curse  from  their  community.  The 
women  wrestled  with  God  in  prayer  in  that  church 
in  Ohio.  They  prayed  and  cried,  and  cried  and 
prayed,  until  they  received  the  full  assurance  of 
faith,  and  then  they  marched  out  of  the  church 
brave  as  lions  and  said  with  the  strength  of  Is- 
rael's God  that  they  would  fight  the  saloon  till 
it  was  destroyed,  and  went  out  on  the  streets  and 
in  front  of  the  saloons  to  pray  to  God  and  plead 
with  men.  Some  of  the  saloon-keepers  got  mad, 
others  took  it  good-humoredly.  Some  of  the  sa- 
loon-keepers laughed  at  the  performance  as  a  huge 
joke.  They  were  mistaken,  as  they  have  since 
learned;  for  nothing  with  God  in  it  is  a  joke. 

When  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance 
Union  succeeded  the  Woman's  Crusade,  it  in- 
herited the  same  prayer  and  faith  in  divine 
guidance  and  victory.  And  it  was  this  intense 


ALCOHOL  AND  THEOLOGY      367 

spiritual  element  in  the  movement  which  attracted 
to  it  one  of  the  most  brilliant  young  women  this 
country  ever  had,  Miss  Frances  Willard,  who 
felt  a  special  call  of  God  so  to  organize  the 
women  of  America  that  their  influence  might  be 
focalized  in  its  opposition  to  the  saloon.  When 
she  and  Miss  Anna  Gordon,  her  secretary,  went 
through  every  state  in  the  Union,  planting  the 
societies,  she  put  the  name  "Christian"  in  the  new 
organization,  calling  it  the  Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  Union.  She  did  so  because  she 
claimed  that  Christ  had  put  the  thought  of  the 
new  organization  in  her  mind,  and  because  it  was 
on  Him  that  she  relied  for  success  in  the  warfare 
on  the  liquor  traffic.  During  her  long  service  as 
head  of  the  society,  and  since  to  this  day,  the 
Christ  element  has  been  magnified,  and  that  is 
why  it  has  had  such  influence  in  this  nation  and 
throughout  the  wide  world.  It  is  the  Christ  who 
has  sanctified  woman's  love  for  home  and  family 
and  made  it  more  than  mortal  in  its  energy  in 
fighting  its  worst  foe. 

The  religious  ingredient  in  the  Order  of  Good 
Templars  and  some  other  temperance  organiza- 
tions is  marked. 

Religion  is  the  element  that  dominates  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League.  This  organization,  raised  up  by 
Providence  to  take  so  important  a  part  in  teaching 
the  people  how  to  vote  to  kill  the  saloon,  and  to 
impel  them  to  do  so,  is  a  strange  combination  of 


368     KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

the  most  human  political  machine  with  the  strong- 
est faith  in  divine  guidance  and  help.  From  the 
human  side  there  has  scarcely  been  anything  like 
it  in  the  history  of  American  politics  in  the  last 
two  decades — nothing  like  its  political  sagacity, 
its  persistency,  its  desperate  hand-to-hand  fights 
in  the  campaigns,  and  in  its  continued  and  startling 
success  at  the  polls  and  in  legislative  halls.  But  the 
human  faith  in  the  divine  energy  is  the  paramount 
element  in  the  League.  It  was  so  in  the  foundation 
and  has  been  so  till  the  passage  of  the  National 
Prohibitory  Resolution  by  the  Senate  and  House. 
The  League  was  born  in  the  heart  of  a  preacher, 
and  that  heart  was  filled  with  love  for  the  Christ. 
Doctor  Russell  is  a  Congregational  minister,  and 
the  son  of  an  Episcopal  rector,  and  the  new  move- 
ment was  the  child  of  agonizing  prayer  and  faith 
in  Almighty  God.  Impelled  with  this  religious 
impulse,  he  naturally  went  to  the  church  for  the 
material  of  his  new  organization.  The  morning 
after  he  held  the  funeral  service  of  a  mother 
whom  drink  had  killed,  he  said  to  himself,  "I  will 
go  out  to  my  brethren  of  the  churches  and  demand 
that  they  become  responsible  for  an  organized 
activity  that  shall  hasten  the  day  when  such  a 
tragedy  will  be  done  away."  So  Russell  took  his 
religious  thought  to  a  church  for  organization, 
the  old  First  Church  in  Oberlin,  Ohio,  at  a  union 
meeting  of  the  pastors  and  members  of  all  the 
churches  of  the  place,  and  on  June  4,  1893,  was 


ALCOHOL  AND  THEOLOGY      369 

born  the  Ohio  Anti-Saloon,  which  soon  grew  into 
the  National  Anti-Saloon  League.  All  of  the 
leaders  the  founder  called  about  him  at  the  start 
came  into  the  movement  after  earnest  prayer  im- 
pelled by  deep  religious  conviction.  About  all  of 
the  workers  in  the  twenty-six  years  following 
have  entered  and  pursued  their  tasks  under  the 
divine  impulse  and  blessing.  About  two-thirds 
of  all  the  State  superintendents  of  the  League  are 
ministers  of  the  Gospel,  representing  most  of  the 
denominations,  and  the  other  third  are  laymen 
who  are  just  as  consecrated  to  the  task  of  de- 
stroying the  greatest  enemy  of  the  Church  and 
establishing  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  as  any  min- 
ister could  be. 

Bishop  Wilson,  the  able  and  honored  resident 
Methodist  Bishop  of  New  York  City,  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  League,  has  for  many  years  been 
president  of  the  National  Anti-Saloon  League. 
In  one  of  the  most  eloquent  addresses  in  the  tem- 
perance literature  of  any  land  Bishop  Wilson  thus 
expresses  his  faith  in  the  divine  guidance  to  ulti- 
mate victory:  "Facing  now  our  opportunity,  re- 
solving that  for  the  welfare  of  the  Republic,  for 
the  good  of  all,  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low, 
wise  or  unlettered,  Prohibition  should  be  written 
in  the  Constitution,  and  declaring  ourselves  for 
the  accomplishment  of  this  most  worthy  end,  let 
us  this  hour  send  up  to  the  God  of  nations  our 
solemn  pledge  that,  whatever  happens,  there  shall 


3?o    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

be  no  turning  back.  It  may  be — it  must  be — that 
as  we  join  in  such  a  pledge  our  Divine  Leader 
shall  give  to  us  His  token  of  approval/' 

At  first  the  churches  were  slow  and  timid  in 
accepting  Russell's  idea,  or  cooperating  with  him 
in  it.  But  he  and  his  enthusiastic  band  of  reli- 
gious reformers  hammered  and  hammered  on  the 
church  doors  till  one  after  another  opened  to 
them,  and  to-day  on  every  Sabbath,  in  every  State 
in  the  Union,  there  are  hundreds,  perhaps  a  half 
thousand  official  representatives,  who  occupy  the 
pulpits  delivering  a  religious  message  at  a  reli- 
gious service,  and  at  its  close  taking  up  an  offering 
for  a  religious  purpose  which  in  the  aggregate 
amounts  to  over  $1,000,000  a  year.  Pretty  close 
relation  this  between  religion  and  the  destruction 
of  the  liquor  traffic;  between  the  Church  and  the 
'death  of  the  saloon. 

And  yet  there  are  those  who  say  that  the 
Church  has  lost  its  power,  and  waste  their  time 
in  dissertations  on  why  it  is  so.  It  is  not  so 
at  all.  The  Church  was  never  so  strong  since 
Christ  founded  it  as  it  is  to-day.  The  triumph 
of  the  Church  over  the  saloon  in  our  time  is 
one  of  the  most  gigantic  religious  victories  in 
the  history  of  the  world  for  a  thousand  years. 
God's  Nature,  Word  and  Kingdom  are  not  more 
pledged  to  defend  and  maintain  the  right  than 
they  are  pledged  to  fight  against  and  overthrow 
the  wrong.  It  is  as  religious  a  thing  to  fight  and 


ALCOHOL  AND  THEOLOGY      371 

abolish  a  saloon  as  it  is  to  say  prayers  or  take  the 
communion.  To  say  the  prayers  and  take  the 
communion  and  have  no  hand  in  destroying  the 
moral  evil  about  us  is  the  faith  without  works 
which  is  dead.  If  the  Church  had  done  nothing 
else  in  the  last  hundred  years  than  drive  the  liq- 
uor evil  out  of  the  land,  it  would  have  justified 
its  existence  and  its  divine  mission.  For  it  in- 
volves the  salvation  of  the  precious  bodies  and 
souls  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  people,  the 
checking  of  suffering,  vice  pnd  crime,  and  the  pro- 
motion of  health,  happiness  and  prosperity  to  mil- 
lions of  citizens  such  as  no  language  can  describe 
and  no  arithmetic  can  compute.  Next  to  the  great 
modern  missionary  movement,  which  is  to  possess 
the  world,  is  this  Christian  temperance  revolution 
of  to-day,  which  is  defeating  and  destroying  the 
drink  traffic,  the  most  powerful  incarnation  of 
moral  evil  in  this  world.  This  victory  should 
awaken  profound  gratitude  in  the  hearts  of  Chris- 
tians and  prompt  renewed  courage  and  action 
against  all  human  wrongs. 

Dulled  by  materialism,  it  is  considered  quite 
the  thing  by  some  people  to  leave  out  sentiment 
and  God  in  human  calculations.  They  claim  that 
the  cold  scientific  fact  that  alcohol  is  a  poison,  with 
no  sentiment  or  morals  in  it,  is  abolishing  the  sa- 
loon; and  they  make  the  more  metallic  statement 
that  Big  Business  on  the  ground  of  efficiency,  of 
cold  dollars  with  no  sentiment  or  duty  about  it, 


372    KING  ALCOHOL  DETHRONED 

is  alone  responsible  for  making  the  nation  dry. 
These  materialists  are  right  in  the  contention  that 
science  and  business  have  been  strong  factors 
against  the  saloon;  but  they  are  mistaken  in  over- 
looking the  moral  and  spiritual  forces  that  have 
been  more  powerful  than  they.  If  they  will  wipe 
the  scales  from  their  eyes  they  will  see  that  the 
drink  problem  is  a  religious  one,  a  question  of 
right  and  wrong;  a  theological  problem  that  the 
Almighty  is  solving;  they  will  see  that  it  is  God 
the  Omniscient  One  who  is  the  source  of  all 
science,  and  God  the  Omnipotent  One,  who  has 
conducted  a  big  business  in  manufacturing  worlds 
and  intelligences,  is  here  in  this  world,  which 
belongs  to  Him,  to  take  charge  of  it  and  save  it, 
and  in  so  doing  He  is  using  science,  business,  law, 
the  ballot  and  other  agencies  as  weapons  with 
which  to  destroy  the  saloon.  If  they  will  look 
with  the  eye  of  Faith  they  will  see  it  is  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Captain,  with  the  soldiers  of  the  Cross, 
who  have  marched  under  his  banner,  that  have 
put  the  vile  hordes  of  King  Alcohol  to  ignomini- 
ous flight  and  have  dragged  him  from  his  throne. 
Alcohol  is  a  psychological  and  a  theological 
question,  because  it  involves  the  soul  and  God's 
relation  to  it.  He  is  not  only  the  food  of  the  soul 
but  is  also  its  medicine  to  cure  the  appetite  for 
strong  drink,  and  every  other  spiritual  malady. 
The  liquor  problem  is  a  psychological  and  theo- 
logical one  because  it  involves  human  conduct, 


ALCOHOL  AND  THEOLOGY       373 

character  and  immortal  destiny.    Alcohol  does  not 
unfit  the  individual  for  the  duties  of  this  earthly 
existence  more  than  it  disqualifies  him  for  the  end- 
less   life    which    is    to    follow.      The    diabolical 
tragedy  is  that  alcohol,  besides  breaking  down  the 
body  and  blighting  the  mind,  burns  and  blasts  the 
soul    with    its    limitless    capabilities,    unfitting    it 
for  the  scenes,  the  employments,  the  enjoyments 
of  immortality.    King  Alcohol  takes  man  made  in 
God's  image,  with  wings  to  fly  to  Him  and  with 
Him  through  eternity,  and  breaks  those  wings  and 
sinks  him,  a  leaden  force  in  the  universe,  away 
from  beauty,  from  truth,  from  love,  from  life — 
a  lost  soul.     In  the  discussion  of  this  question,  we 
must  take  account  of  things  that  neither  the  dis- 
secting knife,  nor  microscope,  nor  test  tube,  nor 
scales  can  apprehend;  that  drink  spoils  a  man  for 
this  life  and  for  the  heaven  which  is  to  come. 
Word  has  just  been  flashed  over  the  wires  that 
more  than  three-fourths  of  the  State  Legislatures 
necessary  have  ratified  the  Amendment.     Let  all 
the  people  of  the  nation  arise  and  sing  the  Long 
Meter  Doxology,  "Praise  God,  from  whom  all 
blessings  flow,"  and  let  them  hold  up  their  right 
hands  and  pledge  each  other  and  God  to  carry 
this  war  to  other  lands,  for  universal  democracy, 
universal  prohibition,  and  universal  Christianity. 


THE   END 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Dr.  Lyman,  120 
Abstinence   in   mill    by    C.    L. 

Huston,  89;    Jas.  Brown,  91; 

G.  D.   Selby,  93;    Ex.   Gov. 

Foss,  94;    in  big  business  by 

J.  O.  Armour,  95 
Absinthe  abolished  in  Europe, 

334 

Alabama,  225 
Alaska,  288 

Alcohol  and  psychology,  i;  in- 
jury of  to  brain,  5;  and  in- 
sanity, 21 ;  and  physiology, 
33;  a  poison;  slays  Paraclesus, 
33;  causes  diseases,  33;  con- 
demned by  physicians,  poisons 
life's  organs,  41 ;  Dr.  Stockard's 
experiments  with,  41 ;  blights 
the  cradle,  46;  and  athletics 
48;  and  literature,  55;  curses 
Burns,  61;  kills  Poe,  77;  and 
capital,  82;  and  labor,  97; 
and  theology,  362;  destroys 
soul,  373 

Alexander,  Gov.,  272 
America  sends  beer  to  Africa,  325 
America  Issue  Pub.  Co.,  320,  337 
American  poets  temperate,  73 
Anheuser  Busch  Co.,  252 
Anti-Saloon  League,  348,  352 
Arizona,  259 
Arkansas,  248 

B 

Baker,  P.  A.,  312,  355 
Bamberger,  Gov.,  283 
Barmaids,  324 


Base  ball  and  abstinence,  40 

Bilbo,  Gov.,  231 

Bingham,  Wm.,  313 

Bok,  Edward,  103 

Boran,  Senator,  273 

Breckenridge,  C.,  signed  pledge 
with  Lincoln,  158 

Brooks,  Noah,  on  Lincoln's  Ab- 
stinence, 149 

Bryan,  W.  J.,  289;  Wineless 
dinner,  289;  addresses,  12,000, 
290;  banquet  to,  290;  Presi- 
dent Wilson  congratulated,  290 

Burns  cursed  by  drink,  61 

Burrell,  Dr.  David  J.,  291 


Campbell,  Gov,  T.  E.,  260 
Cannon,  Bishop,  Jas.,  Jr.,  247, 

3H 
Capper,  Gov.  on  "  dry,"  Kansas, 

179 
Carmack,  Senator,  murdered, 

235 
Carnegie,  Andrew,  opposed 

drink,  104 

Chamberlain,  Senator,  264 
Cherrington,  Ernest  H.,  address 

of,  3i5 

Children  hurt  by  drink,  46 
China  and  prohibition,  314 
Choate,  Joseph,  on  saloon  and 

crime,  120 

Church  fights  saloon,  363 
Clergymen  and  liquor  problems, 

325 

Colorado,  261 
Cobb,  Ty.,  abstainer,  49 


375 


376 


INDEX 


Condit,    Filmore    on    insanity, 

24-27 
Crook,    Col.,    declares    Lincoln 

abstainer,  156 
Cummins,  Senator,  274 
Curtis,  Senator  on    dry  Kansas 

183 

D 

Daniels,     Secretary,     abolishes 

wine  mess,  115 
Dinwiddie,  E.  C.,  313 
District  of  Columbia  dry,  220, 

281,  298 

Dow,  General,  Neal,  173 
Dow,  Col.  Fred,  173 
Drink  and  accidents,  96 
Drink  and  school  children,  324 
Dry  nation,  world  obligation,  332 


Eliot,  C.  W.,  President  Emeritus, 
favors  abstinence,  116;  on 
drink  danger  at  Harvard,  119; 
on  drink  and  social  evil,  118; 
favors  war  prohibition,  119; 
becomes  abstainer  and  pro- 
hibitionist after  eighty  years 
of  age,  119 

Emerson,  Dr.  H.,  against  alcohol, 
33 


Gallinger,  Senator,  285 

Galloway,  Bishop,  C.  B.,  229 

Georgia,  214 

God  is  killing  saloon,  363;  em- 
ploying science,  big  business 
law,  ballot  and  church,  363- 
372 

Goldsmith  injured  by  drink,  55 

Good  templars,  360 

Goodrich,  Gov.,  282 

Gordon,  Miss  Anna  A.,  340 

Gronna,  Senator,  191 

Gunter,  Gov.  J.  C.,  261 

H 

Hanly,  Gov.,  282 
Harris,  Gov.  N.  E.,  222 
Hatfield,  Ex.  Gov.,  246 
Hawaii,  288 
Hinshaw,  Virgil,  351 
Hobson,  R.  P.,  301 
Home  against  saloon,  339 
Hooper,  Gov.,  236 


Idaho,  272 
Indiana,  282 
Insanity  from  drink,  24 
Iowa,  274 


Farmers  favor  prohibition;  for- 
eign countries  and  liquor 
problems,  321 

Federal  legislation,  293,  310 

Fernald,  Senator,  177 

Ferris,  Ex.  Gov.,  280 

Florida,  253 

Foreign  temperance  society,  riot 
by  war,  326;  aid  given  to, 
330;  and  anti-saloon  legisla- 
tion, 330 

Frausto,  C.  A.,  313 

Frazier,  Gov.  on  N.  Dakota,  190 

French  money  opposing  prohibi- 
tion, 326 


Japan  and  prohibition,  314 
Johnston,  Canon,  S.  A.,  313 
Jones,  Sam,  215 
Jones,  Senator,  Wesley  L.,  267 

K 

Kansas,  prohibition  in,  179 

Kentucky,  251 

Kenyon,  Senator,  275;  Kenyo* 
Webb  bill,  294;  declared  con- 
stitutional, 296 

King  Alcohol,  God's  Greatest 
enemy,  362 

Kirby,  Senator,  249 


INDEX 


377 


Labor  and  drink  by  T.  Powderly, 
97;  John  Mitchell,  98;  Sena- 
tor Borah,  98;  Chas.  Stelzle, 
101 

Lea,  Senator  Luke,  242 

Lee,  Robt.  E.,  abstainer,  161 

Lester,  Gov.,  266 

Lincoln  falsely  claimed  by  liquor 
men,  121;  was  life  long  ab- 
stainer, 123;  worked  for  Ills. 
State  prohibition,  126,  131; 
favored  abstinence  in  Civil 
War,  131;  intended  to  take  up 
national  prohibition,  135;  gave 
notification  Com.  only  cold 
water,  151,  154;  banished  nine 
from  White  House,  143; 
speech  of  at  South  Fork 
School  Home,  143-158;  wrote 
and  signed  pledge,  158;  ad- 
dress at  Springfield  against 
drink,  162;  his  prophecy  of 
world  wide  democracy  and 
prohibition,  167,  168 

Lincoln-Lee  Legion  founded  by 
Howard  N.  Russell,  157-161 

Liquor  revenue  not  necessary, 
334;  a  liability  not  asset,  334; 
Civil  War  tax  on,  a  crime,  136 

Longbillow,  abstainer,  75 

Louisiana,  254 

M 

Maine,  first  prohibition  state,  173 

Manning,  Gov.,  250 

Maryland,  251 

Mathew,  Father,  348 

Maus,    Col.,  on   abstinence   lor 

Soldiers,  in 
Merwin,    Major,   worked    with 

Lincoln  for  prohibition,  124- 

137 

Michigan,  280 
Milliken,  Gov.,  178 
Munro,  R.  A.,  313 
Mississippi,  228 
Missouri,  252 


Montana,  276 
Mott,  L.,  314 
Murder  from  drink,  226,  232 

N 

National  Constitutional  prohibi- 
tion passed  by  Senate,  303; 
Senator  Sheppard  on,  304; 
passed  by  House,  306;  and 
ratified  by  forty  states,  306; 
favored  by  Roosevelt,  213 

Nat.  Temp,  and  Publication  So- 
ciety, 349 

Nat.  Safety  Council,  92 

Navy  wine  mess  abolished,  115 

Nebraska,  277 

Neville,  Gov.,  277 

New  Hampshire,  284 

Norbeck,  Gov.,  278 

North  Carolina,  232 

North  Dakota,  187 

Nov.  5th,  1918,  four  new  dry 
states,  288 


Oklahoma,  223 
Oregon,  264 


Paraclesus,  drink  killed,  33 
Parents  drinking  injures  children, 

46 

Party  prohibitionists,  349 
Patterson,  Gov.,  his  conversion, 

237 

Poe,  Edgar  Allen,  drink  ruins,  77 
Poindexter,  Senator,  270 
Pollock,  Judge  C.  A.,  187 
Porto  Rico,  288 

Prize  ring  and  abstinence,  51-53 
Proprietors,  abstainers,  103 
Prohibition  wave  sixty  years  ago, 

172 

Prohibition  War,  307-309 
Prohibition   National   Constitu- 
tional passed  by  Senate,  303; 
by  the  House,  303 


378 


INDEX 


Prohibition  and  foreign  coun- 
tries, 321,  326;  value  of,  268 

R 

Railroads  against  drink,  82; 
maintain  bars,  85 

Reed  bone  dry  amendment,  299 

Religion  basis  of  all  Temperance 
Society,  364;  of  W.  C.  T.  U. 
party  prohibitionists,  Good 
templars,  Anti-Saloon  League, 
366-370 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  closes  Sun- 
day saloons,  1 93-207;  demands 
war  prohibition,  213;  favors 
National  Constitutional  pro- 
hibition, 213;  on  badness  of 
saloon,  213;  sues  scandal- 
monger, 208,  209 


Sailors  and  abstinence,  by  Ad- 
miral Dewey,  115 

Saloon  and  crime  by  Joseph 
Choate,  120 

Sewer  Gang  Tragedy,  28-32 

Scientific  instruction  in  schools, 

343 

Scientific  Temperance  Federa- 
tion, 257 

Shafroth,  Senator,  262 

Sheppard,  Morris,  256,  304 

Sleeper,  Gov.,  282 

Smith,  Senator  Hoke,  a  pro- 
hibitionist in  Georgia,  218 

Smith,  Senator  W.  A.,  281 

Sons  of  Temperance,  360 

Soldiers,  abstinence  for,  in 

Solid,  South,  Why,  257 

Soul  blighted  by  drink,  373 

South  Carolina,  249 

South  Dakota,  278 

Spence,  B.  H.,  313 

Steel  manufacturers  against 
drink,  88-92 

Stelzle,  Chas,  101 

Stewart,  Gov.  S.  V.,  276 


Stockard,  Dr.  and  guinea  pigs, 
41 ;  on  alcohol  and  life  organs, 
46-48 

Stoddard,  W.  O.,  testimony  to 
Lincoln  abstinence,  138-146 


Temperance  societies,  361 

Tennessee,  233 

Texas,  254 

Thomas,  Senator,  of  Col.,  262 

Townsend,  Senator  C.  E.,  281 


Utah, 283 


Virginia,  246 


U 


W 


War  prohibition  favored  by 
Roosevelt,  213 

Washington  City  dry,  220,  281, 
298 

Washington,  State  of,  266 

Webb-Kenyon  bill,  294;  Justice 
White  declares  constitutional, 
296 

Webb,  Congressman,  N.  Y.,  232, 
297 

West,  prohibition  in,  259-272 

West  Virginia,  245 

Westerville  Church  memorable 
meeting  in,  338 

Wheeler,  Wayne  B.,  296 

White,  Wm.  Allen,  on  prohibi- 
tion in  Kansas,  184 

Whittier,  abstainer,  75 

Willard,  Miss  Frances,  341 

Willard,  Jess,  abstainer,  51 

Wilson,  President,  stops  brewer- 
ies, 310;  signs  War  Prohibition 
Bill,  310 

Withycombe,  Gov.,  264 

Woman's  Christian  Temperance 
Union,  341 

Woman's  Suffrage,  346 


INDEX  379 

Woman,  drinking  in  Europe,  324  "World  War  friendly  to  it,  335 

World    Wide    Prohibition    and  World    War    magnifies    moral 

Democracy,   Lincoln   prophe-  questions,  335 
sies  it,  167-168 

World  Wide  Prohibition  League,  2 
333;     American    success    en- 
courages, 333  Zone,  War,  310 


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